Hi to all,
Been at this for
twenty three years as of last week. Hard to believe...
Here’s what I have
for this week’s price changes:
*Heating, stove oil
and Diesel fuel all show an increase of 4/10ths of a cent a litre.
*Gasoline shows an
increase of 2.1 cents a litre.
Market highlights
OPEC meeting is set
for next week
OPEC and non-OPEC
members will meet December 5th and 6th to discuss a
possible additional cut to oil production in an effort to cut back on a world
glut of oil and to help support prices.
OPEC members will start with their own meeting on the 5th, followed
by a meeting on the 6th where they will be joined by non-OPEC
Ministers.
It is the 177th time for OPEC to meet and just the seventh time for
non-OPEC countries.
Meetings to discuss deeper cuts to OPEC’s self imposed cuts of 1.2 million
barrels a day have played on the markets the last few weeks, with prices rising
higher in the last two weeks as the meetings drew near.
US Thanksgiving Day
drives demand
The U.S
Thanksgiving Day holiday has done what some have feared the last few weeks:
drive up prices to consumers.
With an anticipated increase in travel over the next few days, gasoline has
risen as a result that will have some impact on overall supply. But increases
have been tempered somewhat by growing inventories with prices up, but not as
sharply as other years.
US EIA inventory
data
Latest news from
the Energy Information Administration indicates that crude oil continues to
build with inventories adding 1.4 million barrels for the ninth week out of
ten.
Gasoline inventories added 1.8 million barrels, while distillates dropped a
million.
Refiner capacity was recorded at 89.5 percent.
US domestic output was steady at 12.8 million barrels a day.
That’s it for this
week!
Regards,
George Murphy
Twitter
@GeorgeMurphyOil
Hi to all,
Here’s what I have
for this week’s price changes:
*Heating and stove
oil show an increase of 3/10ths of a cent a litre.
*Diesel fuel shows
an increase of 7/10ths of a cent a litre, and...
*Gasoline shows a
drop of 3/10ths of a cent.
Market highlights
US and China on
again-off again
The U.S and China
just seem to not be able to agree to anything, and the agreement that speculators
thought may be coming-is not-again.
China is said to be wanting the US to roll back some tariffs with more due to
hit December 15th, just less than four weeks away.
Having said that, China is also thinking that they may be better off waiting to
find out the results of the U.S impeachment hearings that are ongoing, so they
can try their luck with different leadership.
Oil initially showed increasing prices for this session, that is, until news
broke of stalled talks and a watered down agreement.
Russia dropping
out?
Saudi-led OPEC cuts
to production, in concert with other oil producing nations, may be in trouble
when OPEC meets to renew the production cut agreement next month in Vienna.
Russia is said to be not there yet in agreement to a further cut in production
should the topic of deepening the cuts to production come up. The present
agreement runs until March of 2020, and Russia seems to agree to the same level
as agreed last year, but OPEC wants to reach a new agreement to carry on with
deeper cuts this year.
Oil started a retreat Monday on the news.
OPEC meets December 5th, just under three weeks away.
US inventories
The latest report
on the state of US inventories is out.
Crude supplies grew for the eighth week out of nine as inventories added 2.2
million barrels to a growing US supply.
Gasoline also increase 1.9 million barrels while distillates dropped by 2.5
million barrels.
Refiner capacity was reported at 87.8 percent and US domestic output was up to
12.8 million barrels a day.
Interesting debate
in the House of Assembly
The House of
Assembly will debate a government motion about the placement and use of
electric vehicle charging stations in the House on Wednesday as increased use
of electric vehicles continues to draw interest from consumers.
The motion introduced by MHA Perry Trimper, who himself is a user of an
electric vehicle, will centre on an experimental program for placing charging
stations in predominant locations along the Trans Canada Highway to generate
interest in the use of electric vehicles as an alternative transportation
choice.
Interesting as it is and just as a comparison, I worked out preliminary numbers
on an imaginary trip to Grand Falls-Winsor using gas and then comparing it to
electricity.
What
cost me $70 in a fill-up to make it there would cost me about $7 in
electricity.
Not bad...
The debate in the House starts at 3PM.
That’s it for this
week!
Regards,
George Murphy
Twitter
@GeorgeMurphyOil
Hi to all,
Here’s what I have
for this week’s price changes:
*Heating oil, stove
oil and Diesel fuel all show no changes to prices.
*Gasoline shows a
drop of 1.4 cents a litre.
Market highlights
US-China trade and
tariffs stall the markets
US-China trade
talks have stalled and markets are eagerly awaiting word, positive or negative-
that may at least give them a sense of direction.
Markets stalled late last week as President Donald Trump denied earlier
thinking that a deal was close, saying instead that “Washington wasn’t going to
sign any deal that wasn’t good for the US”. Trump is on record at the Economics
Club of New York just today stating that if the US doesn’t get a deal it likes,
then tariffs will go up”.
The next round of tariffs are due to be applied to almost $155 billion in
Chinese goods and services on December 15th.
Iran sanctions
continue
Iran is finding it
harder to sell its oil on the open market because of ongoing sanctions, but it
is selling some.
Iran is running out of storage space that could create further issues in the
country as it may have to cut back production.
Iranian production was reported at 2.2 million barrels a day last month, well
down from May 2018 when production was measured at 3.8 million barrels a day.
Sanctions have hit hard at Iran’s bottom line with it showing in recent news
that Iran needs oil to hit $195 US a barrel for the finances of the country to
show balanced books.
U.S inventories
US inventories may
singularly be showing signs of a growing glut and a world slowdown in demand of
oil if the trend continues much longer.
Seven of eight of the last sets of inventory data have shown growing crude oil
supplies, the latest data still showing crude supply grew by an added 7.9
million barrels last week.
Gasoline supplied dropped 2.8 million barrels while distillate supplies dropped
600,000 barrels.
Refiner capacity dropped back slightly to sit at 86 percentage points.
The next release of
inventory data happens Thursday, a day later than the usual as a result of
Remembrance Day.
That’s it for this
week!
Regards,
George Murphy
Twitter
@GeorgeMurphyOil
Hi to all,
Here’s what I have
for this week’s price changes:
*Heating and stove
oils show a drop of 1.6 cents a litre.
*Diesel fuel shows
a drop of 1.5 cents a litre, and...
*Gasoline shows no
change in price this week.
Market highlights
US-China trade
optimism
The US and China
are said to be close to an agreement that could lead to resolution of the trade
dispute that has cost both countries an estimated $100 billion in tariffs and
fines.
China has been asking the US to remove some tariffs that were imposed by the US
as late as September as a show of optimism that a deal can be reached going
forward. They may do exactly that as a measure to have Chinese tariffs on oil dropped
so the US can export more, thus supporting US oil prices.
OPEC+ still mulling
production cut
OPEC and non-OPEC
members are still playing with the idea of a production cut as their December
meeting comes closer, but the spectre of sticking to those cuts remains as
pervasive as ever.
Russia, a participant in the cuts since January has reported that they produced
almost 11.3 million barrels a day of oil last month, well ahead of their own
production cut as agreed to with OPEC member nations.
The present agreement is set to end in March, 2020.
Iran rattles nerves
Iran has announced
that it has added another 1000 centrifuges to refine uranium as Iran
makes further moves away from the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Iran
wants sanctions to be removed so it can avoid further damage to its economy,
and according to officials that say the sanctions have been unduly harsh on the
oil exporting country.
There may be something to that as analysts say that Iran needs oil to hot in
excess of $190 a barrel US just to balance the books in 2020.
US inventories
US crude oil
inventories increased in the week ending October 25th, adding 5.7
million barrels to crude oil inventories.
Gasoline lost three million barrels, while distillates dipped a million
barrels.
Refiner capacity was measured at 87.7 percent, up slightly from the last report
as some refineries came back online.
That’s it for this
week!
Regards,
George Murphy
Twitter
@GeorgeMurphyOil
