Price changes for Thursday, August 2nd, 2018

Hi to all,

Here’s what I have for this week’s price changes, all data in:

*Heating and stove oil to increase by 1.9 cents a litre.

*Diesel fuel to increase by 1.2 cents a litre, and...

*Gasoline shows an increase of 2.7 cents a litre.

Market highlights

U.S inventories

U.S inventories of crude oil and gasoline both took hits last Wednesday as supply concerns played into markets.

     Gasoline also dropped in supply as refiner capacity also dropped to 93.8 percentage points, barely keeping up with a strong read on demand last week.

     Inventories of gasoline also dropped a full percentage point closer to their five year running average. Gasoline inventories were a full five percentage points over the five year average from the previous week.

OPEC supply up

Latest figures from OPEC show that output by OPEC member countries rose in July month, adding 70,000 barrels a day to production of over 32 million barrels.

     Oil dropped today on the news after rising on supply concerns after a Houthi rebel rocket attack on two Saudi tankers last week closed a Saudi Arabian port to exports that initially increased oil prices through the pricing session.

Gas taxes. Time to make the downward move?

Budget 2016 saw a full doubling of the gas tax to gasoline as well as an added increase to some diesel fuels.

     While most of the gasoline tax has been removed, a full four cents remains before it falls back to it’s starting point of 16.5 cents pre-budget 2016.

      Consumers have done their fair share and have carried the burden long enough, so this extra four cents should be returned back to consumers who have been fighting an uphill battle in their part to balance the books.

      It would also be a great boost to anybody finishing up holidays, giving them a break to do more summer travel as the season wanes.

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil