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
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