Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Price changes for Thursday, July 2, 2020


Hi to all,

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

*Heating and stove oil to drop 1.8 cents a litre.
*Diesel showing a drop of 2 cents a litre, and...
*Gasoline to drop by 3.5 cents a litre.

Market highlights

Covid-19 announces its presence
For those south of the border who thought it was safe to open the economy again, we have news for you.
     Covid-19 wasn’t going away.
     Numbers of cases of the disease started to increase again in areas such as Arizona, California and Florida at a time when they thought it was safe to open a short time ago.
     Early openings have helped to spread the disease, and doubts about increasing demand of fuels riding on those hopes soon were dashed with both oil and refined commodities beating a retreat that might not stop if Anthony Fauci is right.
    Fauci, the US’s top doc and Covid-19 handler, projects as many as 100,000 extra cases of Covid-19 to wave over the US if measures to stop the disease soon aren’t taken in at least 32 US states.
    The possibility of a demand crash, at least in the US, will temper any gains made with oil. European Union countries have gained some semblance of control over the disease, so that might temper any drop in oil.

US inventories
The Energy Information Administration’s latest read on inventories is out, showing a gain in crude inventories of 1.4 million barrels.
      Gasoline stocks were down by 1.7 million and distillates up by 249 thousand barrels.
      Refiner capacity was reported up to 74.6 percent of capacity, a slight increase from the week previous.
      US domestic production was reported at 11 million barrels a day, an increase of 500 thousand barrels, and 1.1 million barrels lower than for the same timeframe last year.

Start watching your electricity bill
It will hit sometime this month...
     Last year, when I questioned Nalcor’s oil price estimates for electrical generation of $106 a barrel Canadian, I never did get an answer and suggested that it would be way off and that Nalcor should revisit the increase to electrical consumers based on the well-off estimates.
     I was proven right.
     The present government saw fit to have Nalcor revisit those numbers, lowering oil prices for electrical generation down to average $51 a barrel instead. The balance will be returned to consumers in the form of a one-time rebate in July/August.
    The amount everyone receives back as a credit will be based on overall electrical consumption.
    Again, being July, I am again looking forward to find out what Nalcor’s estimates for the price of oil for electrical generation will be in their “application” to the Public Utilities Board, but I will again question the estimates they come up with.
    Present day prices are hanging around $55 a barrel Canadian.

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil  

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