Tuesday, August 04, 2020

Price changes for Thursday, August 6th, 2020

Hi to all,

 

Here’s what I have for price changes for this Thursday, August 6th, 2020...

 

*Heating, stove oil and Diesel all show a drop of 1.1 cents a litre, and...

*Gasoline shows a drop of 3 cents a litre.

 

Market highlights

 

Covid continues to choke demand

Just when they thought it was safe to go back to their drill bits...

    News of any potential increase in oil prices continues to be tempered by continuing outbreaks of Covid-19 worldwide, especially in the United States as Covid-19 seems to be a huge factor in any economic recovery.

    Word of several outbreaks in Australia, Germany, Spain and the US continues to keep a hold of any meteoric rise in oil prices and demand for most distillates as well as gasoline, has been flattened.

     And with the end of summer coming quick, further drops in demand for transportation fuels, including gasoline, is highly likely.

 

Early winter outlook

With the summer drawing to a close for some, bets on gasoline by speculators usually switches to distillates, like heating oil as the fall and winter seasons contracts approach.

     The colder the weather, the more demand for distillates.

    A look at the data shows heating and stove oil spot prices a rather tidy 13 cents a litre lower than the same timeframe for last year, and if oil prices remaining relatively flat over the next few months, then consumers can expect to pay up to 79 cents a litre, down from the 92.9 they paid at peak winter pricing last year in the immediate St. John’s area.

     However, with Covid-19 holding the possibility of further shutdowns in the future that may keep everyone close to home, demand may increase to close that gap between this year and last year’s pricing.

     I’ll continue to keep an eye to it all!

 

US inventory data

The Energy Information Administration’s latest inventory data is out, and it shows a drop of 10.6 million barrels, leaving inventories of crude a full 17 percent above last years levels.

     Gasoline showed an increase of 700,000 barrels, while distillates were also reported up slightly, but by 500,000 barrels.

     Refiner capacity was recorded at 79.5 percent.

     US domestic production remained steady at 11.1 million barrels a day.

     The Baker-Hughes rig count remained at 251 operating rigs, but down from the 946 that were operating at the same time last year, a drop of close to 75 percent.

 

That’s it for this week!

 

Regards,

 

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil  


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