Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Price changes for Thursday, August 30, 2018


Hi to all,



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



*Heating and stove oil to increase by 3.6 cents a litre.

*Diesel fuel shows an increase of 3.2 cents a litre, and...

*Gasoline shows an increase of 2.9 cents a litre.



Market highlights



Competition takes a step backwards with Ultramar sale

Consumers have lost a lever of competition and cheaper gasoline prices in Newfoundland and Labrador this week with the sale of most Ultramar stations to Irving this past week.

     With little to no notice, the markets here in the immediate northeast Avalon area lost the second lowest retailer of gasoline products. Ultramar’s Valuemax program was an added incentive to consumers here that helped save a few more pennies for consumers, but the program has been all but erased with the sale of retail stations to Irving.

     No word yet on whether Irving will step up and have a program to replace it.

     Question for me is whether the Federal Competition Bureau stepped in to have a look at the sale of the stations between the companies to see how consumers would possibly be affected.

     That’s a question I’ll be asking “sooner rather than later”.

    



Inventories drive oil, gasoline and distillate

Last Wednesday’s inventory report from the U.S Energy Information Administration was all that was needed to light up the price of oil this past week as inventories of crude oil were seen to have dropped by 5.8 million barrels.

     Oil prices increased a rough $4 U.S in the week after the report which also saw gasoline and distillate prices increase, with speculators starting to put added pressure on distillate fuels with summer drawing to a close.

     Refineries operated at 98.1 percent of overall capacity.



That’s it for this week!



Regards,



George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil

No comments: