Price changes for Thursday, June 27th, 2019

Hi to all,



Here’s what I have for this week’s price changes. Sorry it’s so late, but I’m just home from a late night at work!



*Heating and stove oils to increase by 2.4 cents a litre.

*Diesel to increase by 2.6 cents a litre,  and...

*Gasoline shows an increase of 3.8 cents a litre.



Market highlights



US-Iran tensions play out

What started as attacks against two tankers last week has expanded to a shootdown of a US drone allegedly in Iranian airspace that threatens to expand into a full-out conflict. Oil rose the past week as fears of a supply disruption of anything leaving through the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

     Things seemed to ease a little just yesterday as President Trump seemed to downplay the threat and shootdown of a US military drone as being from someone not acting on the part of the Iranian government.



US-China trade and tariff talks

Market traders seemed upbeat the last few days after word leaked that the US sent negotiating teams ahead of Donald Trumps meeting with China’s Xi Jinping, president of the Asian country, in the hope that common ground could be found in bringing an end to the tariff dispute between the two major economic powers.

    Both leaders will hopefully meet at the G20 meeting later this week to have direct talks to alleviate the dispute.

     Any positive outcome will support and likely raise further, the price of oil as anticipated demand will pick up.



Philadelphia refinery fire

A fire at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions plant has taken 200,000 barrels of production out of a total of 335,000 barrel a day refinery in the U.S northeast.

     While initially thought to be critical, the stock of gasoline and production at the refinery will be replaced with product through the U.S Colonial Pipeline system, bringing in any shortfall of supplies to market.

     It is estimated that it may take upwards of two years to have the refinery back to full production as the fire destroyed a chunk of available overall production.

     While gasoline prices initially made strong upwards moves, prices have since stabilized.



That’s it for this week!



Regards,



George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil