Price changes for Thursday, March 29, 2018

Hi to all,

Here’s what I have for this Thursday’s price changes:

*Heating/stove oils to increase by 4.1 cents a litre.

*Diesel fuel to increase by three cents a litre, and...

*Gasoline to increase by 3.5 cents a litre.

Market highlights

Bolton appointment continues to fan the oil markets

     John Bolton seems to be a nice enough fella...

     At least to Donald Trump.

     He’s now a member of the Trump cabinet and was a key adversary of the Iran nuclear deal reached between Obama and six other nations sitting around the U.N security council, and Germany. The deal signed a few years back saw Iran increase its oil exports in return for promising to shut down it’s nuclear aspirations.

     Markets are still trading oil higher as speculators see the possibilities of another extended Middle East conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a problem that was given fuel with Crown Prince Bin Salman meeting with Trump earlier this week.

Budget 2018

     The provincial budget is in and there’s really no surprises in it.

     While the province held back on the remaining four cents a litre in gas taxes that first came in back in Budget 2016, they did commit to dropping the gas tax immediately upon implementation of a new carbon tax due to hit the people of the province in January of 2019.

      Further, the province has set the budget based on $63 US a barrel.

      With eleven opinions of where oil will be, the government settled on those opinions.

      I personally wouldn’t have gone beyond $55 US. We’ve been here before and the markets are certainly volatile with U.S domestic production set to break the eleven million barrel a day mark in a couple of months. True, that geo-politics may reign supreme in the news right now, but anything is possible and can’t be discounted.

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil

Saudi Arabia, Trump and Iran...and yes, your weekly price changes!

Hi to all,

Here’s what I have for this week’s price changes:

*Heating and stove oil to increase by 2.3 cents a litre.

Diesel fuel to increase by 2.4 cents a litre, and...

*Gasoline to increase by three cents a litre.

Market highlights

Saudi Arabia pokes the Middle East bear...

Saudi Arabia joined in on Trump’s refrain in calling the Iran nuclear deal into question late yesterday as the Middle East rhetoric ramps up.

     Trump has also called into question the deal first signed in 2009, but there may be an ulterior motive behind the increase in questioning the deal.

      While Trump has been making the call, U.S exports of domestic oil have increased along with the increase in U.S domestic production. If sanctions were to be ramped up again against Iran, it could come in the form of lower oil output again from Iran, creating space for both U.S and Saudi Arabian exports to fill the void.

      Saudi Arabia has also lost a little market share in the last couple of years and may have good reason in limiting the cash intake to a country that supports the opposite regime in Yemen.

      In the meantime, the Saudi crown prince is on record as saying the Saudi’s would build nuclear weapons if Iran succeeds.

      Scary times...

Venezuelan production lower...

Unrest and a weak economy saddled with a huge government debt is driving Venezuelan production lower at a time when the South American country can least afford it..

      According to International Energy Agency figures, the South American country’s production has fallen close to 600,000 barrels a day since the same time last year.

Provincial budget next week to lower gas taxes?...

The province is set to drop the budget March 27^th and that brings with it the promise of a return to lower gas taxes as government is set to remove the last four cents a litre (4.6 cents including HST) first implemented in Budget 2016.

      The gas tax at that time doubled from 16.5 cents a litre to 33 cents a litre in an attempt to increase provincial revenue by increasing the gas tax take from $189 million per year to a predicted $318 million.

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy

Twitter@GeorgeMurphyOil

Tillerson removal and this week's price changes...

Hi to all,

Here’s what I have for this week’s price changes:

*Heating and stove oil to drop by 4/10ths of a cent a litre.

*Diesel fuel to decrease by 3/10ths of a cent a litre, and...

*Gasoline to decrease by a half penny a litre.

Market highlights

Watch oil-Tillerson is gone...

While it was a fairly quiet week on the markets, the removal of Tillerson from the Trump “cabinet” again placed an interest back into Middle East politics.

      At this point, his removal shouldn’t be a surprise. Both were miles apart on a key issue on Trump’s agenda, a renegotiation of the Iran nuclear deal.

      With Tillerson now gone, it may be worthwhile to keep an eye on oil prices as Trump may be about to take a poke at the Middle Eastern bear to see if he can’t again get his way and make changes to the Iran nuclear deal signed by Obama and five other nations in 2015.

U.S inventories

U.S crude inventories increased again last week adding 2.4 million barrels in a report that also showed a drop in gasoline supplies of 800K barrels.

      Distillate also saw a drop in inventories of 600K barrels.

      Refiner capacity was recorded at 88 per cent with scheduled refinery shut-downs.

       U.S domestic oil production hit a new high of 10.369 million barrels a day, an increase of 86,000 barrels in the last week.

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil

Price changes for Thursday, March 8th, 2018

Hi to all,

Here’s what I have for this Thursday’s price changes:

*Heating/stove oils to drop by 1.8 cents a litre.

*Diesel price to drop by 2.2 cents a litre, and...

*Gasoline to drop by 1.4 cents a litre.

Market highlights

U.S inventories weigh on the markets

While speculators have been groping for positive news in the oil markets, they have been coming up with disappointing results, and that includes the latest U.S inventory reports that signal that the U.S is starting to fill up its coffers with new oil.

      U.S crude inventories increased Wednesday last week by another three million barrels, adding to a potential glut of oil south of the border.

     Gasoline inventories also increased in spite of lower refiner capacity. Gasoline rose by 2.5 million barrels as refiner capacity dropped to 87.8 percent. With a drop in the capacity due to refinery shut-downs for maintenance, it was unusual to see gasoline inventories building with refinery spigots turned off.

       It may also signal a slightly bigger drop in demand as consumers may have been curtailed from using fuel as a result of foul late winter weather.

      U.S domestic output increased in the last week, adding another 13,000 barrels a day to overall U.S production of oil.

Canadian dollar sinks again

The Canadian dollar lost ground again to Trump’s call for increased tariffs against Canadian steel and aluminum helped support refined prices.

      With the Canadian dollar losing almost three cents against the U.S greenback, refined prices also lost roughly 1.6 cents a litre on all refined fuel prices.

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil