Numbers for Thursday price changes

Hello to everyone,

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes:
Heating and stove oils expected to rise by 1.25 cents a litre.
Diesel expected to rise by 9/10ths of a cent, and...
Gasoline shows an added 3.4 cents a litre.

*Note that I believe it is this Thursday where the winter blend for heating and Diesel fuels comes into effect, so the numbers for those fuels may be slightly off as a result of the new blend. Use those numbers as a rough indicator only.

The markets were a little choppy this last period with everything from sell-offs of oil interests to refinery shut-downs in the US northeast and eastern Canada. That's why we're looking at a sharp jump in gasoline prices this week, along with some of the distillate fuels. That, and the other downside factor of the strength in the US dollar. Because there's such insecurity over world markets still, and slow worldwide economic recovery (if any) outside the US, their dollar has been gaining an awful lot of strength against the Canuck Buck. We've lost 1.2 cents against the US dollar just this last week!

On the positive end, I don't expect those prices to stick for next week. Already, the markets are starting to take notice of an impending glut in the worldwide markets and that has sent all crude oil prices to the downside that consumers should start to notice shortly.

The sharp increase to Libyan production this last week, all in spite of some unrest there has sent Brent prices down. Speculators, especially those selling hedge funds into those markets, have been pulling out from their long positions now that the writing is on the wall as regards to an abundance of crude out there. US domestic production has hit another record with the EIA estimating overall US numbers hitting close on 8.9 million barrels a day.

I'll leave it at that, but right now, speculators are now betting on lower oil!

Feel free to share this!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, September 25, 2014

Hello everyone,

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes:

Heating and stove oils show a drop of 1.18 cents a litre.
Diesel fuel is expected to drop by 1.6 cents a litre,and...
Gasoline showing a small increase of 8/10ths of a cent a litre.

The amazing strength of the US dollar has probably come about as the result of the weakness of the overall world economy. With consumer demand remaining "lackluster", it would be good reason for investors to start placing their faith in the strongest of currencies.

Until such a time as any signs of world economic activity picking up, expect commodities like oil and gold to continue to show weakness.

How long can that be expected remains a question in itself though, and perhaps a topic I'll pick up on another time!

That's it for this week!

Regards,

George
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA 

Price changes for Thursday, September 18, 2014

Hello everyone;

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes:

Heating and stove oils expected to drop by 1.48 cents a litre.
Diesel to drop by 1.5 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline to drop by 2.2 cents a litre.

Crude oil rose for the first time in two weeks as OPEC's secretary Abdulla El-Badri speculated that producers within the organization may institute production cuts at its next meeting in Vienna in November. The Saudi Arabian oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi however said just last week that there was no need for any production cut as he expects oil demand to pick up later this fall as demand for heating oil picks up to meet expected colder weather.

Other than that this week, a cut to world oil demand was expected in the next year by the International Energy Agency. No doubt, consumers are still upset with elevated prices and demand for fuels such as gasoline and distillates remains flat. Huge numbers in increases in US domestic production will continue to influence oil prices ahead of what OPEC may do. In spite of OPEC's talk about a possible production cut, I don't expect to see an increase anytime soon to all fuels as a result of the availability of oil product.

That's it for this week! Feel free to pass this note around!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Numbers for Thursday, September 11, 2014

Hi to all,

Here’s what I have for this Thursday’s price changes…

Nothing major this week, next to the fact that Brent crude is slipping further due to lower China manufacturing numbers and a not-so-steady ceasefire in the Ukraine. Lower than expected growth numbers in GDP amongst European Union countries also has the European markets worried over another dip into another Eurozone crisis.

Heating and stove oils can expect a 7/10ths of a cent a litre drop.

Diesel fuel shows a drop of just a half penny, and…

Gasoline shows an added 3/10ths of a cent a litre.

Margin for error +/-3/10ths of a cent.

The Canadian dollar also finished slightly lower against the US greenback, finishing this pricing session at $1.1012 against its southern neighbor. Inventories there last week reported a drop of 900K barrels of crude oil and 2.3 million barrels of gasoline due to a turnaround of refinery runs to distillate fuels.

Distillate fuels that include heating, stove oils and diesel showed an increase of just 600K barrels.

In case you’re all still following the Muskrat issue, here’s an interesting one from the EIA that speaks about over 4300 megawatts of added electricity capacity to the grid recently. That’s in the first half of 2014…

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, August 28, 2014

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes:

Heating and stove oils down by just 2/100ths of a cent.
Diesel to drop by just 1/10th of a cent a litre, and...
Gasoline to increase by 2.5 cents a litre.

While oil prices were holding somewhat steady, they did increase slightly for West Texas Intermediate crude. What I did notice was a decrease in gasoline inventories last week which may have influenced the upward move of gasoline immediately before the Labour Day weekend.

See you all next week!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, August 21, 2014

Greetings from St. George's-Stephenville East where I'm out here working!

Here's what I have for Thursday's price changes:

Heating and stove oils show down by 1.38 cents a litre....
Diesel is also forecast to drop by 1.5 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline is forecast to drop by 1.4 cents a litre.

Oil started to take another tumble with the news that the Kurds have again taken the Mosul Dam area off the ISIS forces in the area, lessening the threat to some more of Iraq's oilfields. That sent Brent and WTI prices lower, but kept the Canadian dollar down along with it against the US greenback...

Sure would love to see a build in inventories again tomorrow. It will help to keep the downwards pressure on oil if it were to show consumers were still not driving demand of gasoline or heating fuels!

That's it from this side!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA
 

Price changes for Thursday, August 14, 2014

Sorry for any inconvenience last week. I was out of town and couldn't post the numbers! I hope you all got them from my Twitter feed in spite of!

With all data in, here's what I have for this week's price changes:

Heating and stove oils show an added 55/100ths of a cent a litre.
Diesel fuel adds 6/10ths of a cent a litre, and...
Gasoline adds just 7/10ths of a cent a litre.

Again this week, the Canadian dollar lost about a half cent against the US greenback. The Markets remain relatively steady in spite of word of further US involvement in Iraq. Most of the market pressures off Middle East influences can be directly attributed to the fact that US domestic supply has become an important player in determining the "off-influence" prices we're seeing today.

Simple fact is that, while there is trouble in the Middle East, supplies are secure in North America as a result of the growth in US domestic production.

Security of supply...

That's it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, July 31, 2014

Hi to all,

Been really busy, so, excuse the lateness of this...

Public Accounts Committee work and constituency matters have to come first, after all...lol

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes. Keep in mind that my margin for error is 3/10ths of a cent +/-

Heating and stove oils show an added 1.58 cents a litre on the way.
Diesel shows an added 1.9 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline shows just 2/10ths of a cent increase at the pumps.

The increase in Middle east violence deserves some watching, but still hasn't affected oil prices to the point of increasing them. Refined commodities are up slightly on investors looking forward to the winter heating season. That's why you see Diesel up as well, being part of that same distillate group of fuels.
Gasoline mostly steady as a result of continued bullish increases in inventory. I believe that consumers are still upset with the high prices we have been seeing still, and they should be!

The Canadian dollar has also lost some ground against the US dollar over the last week. Worrisome maybe, but for every penny we lose against the US greenback, we lose a penny at the pumps. We lost a clear penny since last Tuesday's measure.

I'll keep it at that this week, but if you have any questions, feel free to drop me a note!

Regards to all,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA 

Price changes for Thursday, July 24, 2014

Hi to all,

All numbers are in, and, as I said earlier, don't expect much in the way of price changes.
Here's what I have for this Thursday:

Heating and stove oils to increase by just 4/100ths of a cent.
Diesel to increase by 3/100ths of a cent, and...
Gasoline to drop a half penny.

My margin for error is 3/10ths, so take it from there. No panic this week!

At least we won't see a wild increase. Fourth week in a row to see a drop in gasoline prices, as little as it might be.

Highlights
The Canadian dollar remained relatively steady against its US counterpart with the Canuck Buck averaging $1.074 against the US currency.

The price of oil gained an average of $3 US on the markets as continuing violence in the Middle East as well as the diplomatic tension created with the crash of Malaysia 17 in the Ukraine. Some fears in the markets are mostly centered around Brent prices as Europe is heavily dependent upon Russian exports of oil as well as natural gas through the Ukraine region. As you can tell by the numbers in the price changes, there was little effect on spot prices, which remained relatively steady on the refined spot markets.

That’s it for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, July 17th, 2014

Hi to everyone,

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes:

Heating and stove oils to drop by just 81/100ths of a cent a litre.
Diesel to drop by 1.1 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline to drop by 1.6 cents a litre.

The Canadian dollar dropped a penny on average against the US greenback over this pricing session. That, in essence, cost consumers a rough penny in the numbers. While they're all down, the numbers give you a sense of how the Canadian dollar is so tied to raw export of resources. Not only do we ship out jobs, but it cost us to do it. In this case, while the price of oil has slipped some this past week, the support for the dollar has weakened as a result.

So endeth the economic lesson for today!

We can enjoy the lower price anyway, but at a cost...

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyMHA 

Price Changes for July 10, 2014

Hi to all,

Here's what I have for this week's changes. Looks like we can keep some "klink" in our pockets at the end of the week!

Heating and stove oils show a drop of 2.92 cents a litre on the way.
Diesel shows a drop of 2.7 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline shows a drop of 1.7 cents a litre.

Libyan exports have started, and that's added close to another 560,000 barrels of Brent crude to the markets. While oil prices declined, it seemed that attacks by the ISIS militants has not affected any exports from Iraq as well.

Good news for further exports entering the markets, and the more available out there, the less problems getting hold of the stuff.

The only downside here is that while prices for oil are slipping, the Canadian dollar is starting to lose a little ground against the US dollar. In other words, while prices decline, they may slow...

That's it for this week!

Regards to all,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, July 3, 2014

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes.

Heating and stove oils show a drop of 2.52 cents a litre.
Diesel shows a drop of 3.1 cents a litre on the way, and...
Gasoline also shows a drop of 2.4 cents a litre.

Numbers were a little off last week, so, either way, they will still be down. I missed some market volatility at the tail end of last week's session.

In spite of ongoing violence in Iraq, markets showed a modest "retreat" because of bad economic data, showing that the US economy still has some improvement to do before things are straight. The biggest news showed gasoline demand had dropped close on four percentage points as compared to the same time-frame last year. That speaks volumes about what consumers are still thinking about prices at the pumps.

If there's any bad news in the numbers, it's still the fact that there has been only about a four cent drop in heating and stove oil prices since January's numbers. That doesn't say a lot about heating and stove oil prices getting any cheaper before winter. Still a ways to go yet before I can call the shot on what to expect for the winter, but it doesn't look any better than last year right now.

Feel free to share this message!

That's it for this week!

Regards to all,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA 

P.S There's a new law coming into effect having to do with "spamming" that I'll have to look into. Apparently, one has to be asked to subscribe all over again in order to "get permission" to send this to everyone. I'll have to check into the effects on an auto-send feature such as this blog has, so, if you don't want to get this blog-post via your email again, please feel free to use the "unsubscribe" feature on the email you receive!...

Price changes for Thursday, June 26th, 2014

Hi to all,

Here's what I have for this Thursday's price changes:

Heating and stove oils add 83/100ths of a cent a litre.
Diesel fuel adds 1.7 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline adds a cent a litre.

The Canadian dollar picked up a penny against the US dollar over the past week on an increase in refined commodity prices. Oil stayed relatively steady over the past week on Iraq violence, peaking at just over $107 WTI before retreating slightly. There is still considerable worry over whether militants in Iraq will manage to take Baghdad. The concern here is a complete collapse of the present government if they do. The areas to the immediate southeast of Baghdad are responsible for about 75 percent of Iraqi exports and production.

Even then, Iraqi production and exports represents just 10% of OPEC production, and even smaller worldwide. Other areas worldwide have been showing increasing production, probably enough to offset any loss of product directly to the markets. But will it be enough to satisfy the market speculators?

I'll continue to keep an eye to things, supplying any updates or radical changes to spot pricing if necessary.

That's it for now!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA 

Numbers still show prices to increase on Thursday...

Feel free to share this one around!

Update for everyone after today's market activity, all hinging on Iraq of course!

Here's what I have with six days data in:

Heating and stove oils are up by 2.32 cents a litre.
Diesel is up by 2.7 cents a litre.
Gasoline is up by 2.2 cents a litre.

I think an important thing to note here is that the markets were a little skittish about the weakness of the economic recovery, and they have good reason to be. If you look at your own disposable income, you know yourself that things are tight and have been for a while.

if there is a shut-down of Iraqi production, and oil climbs higher, traders and speculators know it's going to cause huge economic problems for everyone. That's part reason why oil prices haven't gone completely off the deep end!

I'll have the last update with final numbers tomorrow night, but what you see here now is what is most likely to occur this week in Newfoundland and Labrador.

It's situations like this in the markets that has me thanking fuel price regulation again. At least we're not getting screwed like they have been in other major centers in the country who's prices are up on "panic" alone!

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Iraq violence continues: Update on the markets

A fuel price update....

Watching the markets closely with all the violence in Iraq (what else is new?) and, while the numbers are up, they're not up as much as what everyone was expecting at this point.

Here's what I have so far with five days data heading into next week's price changes:

Heating and stove oils add 2.2 cents a litre.
Diesel adds 2.5 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline adds 2.1 cents a litre.

The markets look like they're more concerned about consumer demand moreso than any possible supply disruption.

I'll update again Monday!

Regards,

George Murphy, MHA, St. John's East
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, June 12, 2014

Hi to all!

Don't expect too much in the way of price changes this time around as the markets still search for consumer demand to increase. With consumers still not ready to buy at these high prices, it's understandable to see why prices ate steady again this week.

Here's what I have:

Heating, stove oils and Diesel fuel to drop by just 2/10ths of a cent a litre.
Gasoline to drop by just 6/10ths of a cent a litre.

The Canadian dollar remains relatively steady against the US Greenback, with refiner capacity up another two percentage points to sit at just over 90 per cent. A drawdown on inventory of crude oil was offset somewhat by gains in both gasoline and distillate inventories.

Looks like a "what you see is what you're going to get" scenario shaping up for the rest of the summer. Another week or so, and we'll enter the August buying period where we'll see some demand for gasoline drop off slightly as the summer driving season comes to a close. If they're going to try and make a profit off any speculation, then the speculators will try again soon. Time is running out for this summer for them!

That's it again for this week!

My regards to all!

George Murphy, MHA, St. John's East
Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyMHA

In Case I Can't Post Later Tonight!....

Seven days data in.(Updated!)

I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to post updated numbers based on today's market moves simply because the House of Assembly is open tonight and I don't know if I'm going to get the chance...(I did!)

Here's what I have for Thursday so far, with one more day of data due:
Heating, stove oils and Diesel fuel show little change with just 2/10ths of a cent a litre drop showing up.
Gasoline shows an increase of 1.3 cents a litre on the backside of the US Memorial Day weekend holiday.

The summer driving season is now on. Prices after Thursday's price changes may be what you'll see for June and July.

See what happens!

These are the final numbers.

Regards,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA 

Price changes for Thursday, May 8th, 2014

Hi to all,

Sorry this is late. We had a late sitting of the House tonight.

Final numbers for Thursday, May 8th price changes.

All the data in now. Here's what I have. All for the better from today's earlier tweet!

Heating and stove oils to drop by 2.46 cents a litre.
Diesel down by 2.6 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline to drop now by 4.1 cents a litre.

The Canadian dollar has gained slightly against its US counterpart, finishing today at $1.089 against the Greenback.

Prices are probably down in the markets as a result of consumer sentiments about high prices. No doubt, as we're all a little peeved about rising prices. Speculators have heard the arguments and seem to be pulling back somewhat until stronger demand signals kick in.

The markets are "touchy". Even with high sentiments about prices, oil prices didn't gain on the surprising jobless numbers out of the US, possibly reflective of the improving US economy. Speculators took consumer sentiment over the positive economic figures in the US this time around it seems.

Add to that, the fact that there's still not so good news out of China. Remains a factor to play out here, as any good news from there may be enough to turn oil prices up.

Keep conserving and "expressing" dis-satisfaction with prices, and we'll all impact inventory! That's key right now!

All the best!

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA

Price changes for Thursday, May 1st, 2014

Sorry I'm late, but work had to come first and foremost...

Disappointing news from the markets today. As a matter of fact, all week.

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

Heating oil shows a drop of just 39/100ths of a cent a litre.
Diesel shows just a drop of 7/10ths of a cent a litre.
Gasoline: Down just 1/10th of a cent on a litre.

Sickening to see no change. Wednesday's inventory report, if it shows any increase in gasoline supply, may start to move prices down.
But if they show a draw on inventory, it could move prices the opposite direction. Needless to say, I'll be watching for that inventory report when it comes around.

Hate to disappoint with tonight's news, but at least the numbers don't show any upwards moves.

All the best,

George Murphy
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA 

Price changes for Thursday, April 17th, 2014

Here's what I have for Thursday's price changes.

Not good.

Heating and stove oils show an added 63/100ths of a cent.
Diesel fuel shows an added 1.1 cents a litre, and...
Gasoline shows an added 5 cents a litre at the pumps.

A draw on gasoline inventories may have been a huge factor in this week's increase, all in spite of a good build of inventory of crude oil.

I guess with snow on the melt, the gulls in the markets are taking advantage of warming weather ahead of the summer driving season. We'll keep an eye for anything happening in the markets that may drive prices up again and give everyone a better heads-up for next week.

The Canadian dollar remained about equal to its US counterpart in spite of the $3 US increase in crude prices.

That's it this week!

Regards,

George Murphy, MHA
St. John’s East
Twitter @GeorgeMurphyMHA