Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Price changes for Thursday, February 25th, 2021

 

Hi to all,

 

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

 

*Heating and stove oil to increase by 1.7 cents a litre.

*Diesel shows an increase of 2.1 cents, and...

*Gasoline shows an increase of 3.9 cents a litre.

 

Market highlights

 

Oil and refined prices continue to rise

Crude oil and refined product prices continued to rise this past week as Texans dealt with a severe weather system that devastated the state’s electrical system, knocking out almost 1.1 million barrels a day in refining, and also taking out crude oil production estimated now as much as two million barrels a day as pipelines and related infrastructure froze up.

     Temperatures went as low as four degrees Fahrenheit and winter weather pounded electricity users.

      Some refining infrastructure may come back online soon though, and that may bring back some promise of lower prices as prices south of the border have risen as much as thirty cents a gallon there. Some refiners are reporting that they may not be back online and in production for another month.

      Electricity costs have also skyrocketed, costing as much as $9000 for a  megawatt of electricity.

 

Saudi’s and Russia clash on oil?

According to Oilprice.com, the Russians and Saudi Arabia may be about to clash again over the sudden rise of oil prices and the timing of a return to production cut between OPEC+ and Russia.

     While Saudi Arabia wants to keep cuts at their present levels heading into April month, the Russian energy minister Alexander Novak is on record as saying that the current price of oil is reflective of the market conditions and that markets have returned to balance.

     Russia and OPEC+ will meet again March 3-4th to discuss the condition of the markets where it is believed that the Saudi’s will use their million barrel cut in production as a bargaining chip to attaining a new deal on production at next week’s meetings.

     Oil prices have risen sharply and has led some OPEC+ members to seek higher production levels to take advantage of the price increase.

 

US EIA inventory report

US crude oil inventories dropped 7.3 million barrels in the US EIA inventory report up to February 12th.

     Gasoline supplies increased by 700 thousand barrels and distillates dropped 3.4 million barrels on 83.1 percent refiner capacity in the week ahead of the Texas blackout.

     US domestic production was reported at 10.8 million barrels a day for the same week.

 

That’s it for this week!

 

Regards,

 

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil  

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