Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Price changes for Thursday, March 23, 2017


Hi to all,



Short and sweet, here's what I have for this week's price changes:



*Heating & stove oils show a drop of 4/10ths of a cent a litre.

*Diesel fuel shows a drop of 7/10ths of a cent a litre, and...

*Gasoline shows no change in price this week.



Market highlights



API report shows another inventory gain

     While not my source of inventory news that influences my way of thinking, new numbers from the American Petroleum Institute shows another increase in crude oil supply, this time by 4.5 million barrels a day

     Gasoline showed a drop in inventories of 4.9 million barrels, while distillate supplies dropped just over 800 thousand barrels.



Canadian dollar steady

     Up to three days ago, the dollar remained steady against the US greenback, but gained almost a penny against its US cousin in the latter half of the week.

     Oil, in the meantime, lost a dollar US this past pricing session.

     Brent was priced at $40.67 a barrel March 21st last year.



Upcoming provincial budget

     With oil prices close to $51 US a barrel Brent right now, it is obvious that the government will show some added revenue from oil royalties.

     It may be wishful thinking, but it may be time for the government to roll back the heavy increase that was levied onto gas taxes, if only just in part. While government may have thought it "prudent" to increase taxes, it became heavy-handed to levy an added 16.5 cents in added gasoline tax.

     Additional taxes resulted in an increased take as well from HST with the result being a twenty cent a litre hit at the pumps.

     We all could use the break!



That's it for this week!



Regards,



George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil

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