Hi to all,

Not much change expected in the numbers this week. Keep in mind my margin for error is just three tenths of a cent, so, here’s what I have for this week:

· Heating and stove oils are down by 7/100ths of a cent.

· Diesel is down by 1/10^th of a cent, and…

· Gasoline shows a drop of 8/10ths of a cent on the way.

That’s it for me this week. It’s been another late night in the House. As the estimates committees are over-with, I may even have some time to look at oil prices in the coming days!

I’ll be in touch again, no doubt!

Thanks for your patience!

Regards,

George Murphy

Group researcher/Member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyNDP

Numbers for this week: All down

Hi to all,

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

· Heating and stove oils down by 1.37/Litre.

· Diesel down by 2.0/litre, and…

· Gasoline to drop by 1.7/Litre.

Market highlights

· Still a lot of questions surrounding Greece and their ability to form a majority government. It’s widely believed that the instability there is undermining both consumer confidence and the strength of the Euro.

· Libya output has finally reached over 1.6 million barrels a day of production, spurring optimism in ongoing recovery of exports from the North African country.

· Yukiya Amano, the UN’s head of the International Atomic Energy Agency will be making a special visit to Iran to discuss the ongoing nuclear dispute. It’s a rare move that may be signaling significant moves on the part of Iran. It’s been four years since speculation swirled over Iran’s possibility of manufacturing of nuclear weaponry.

· OPEC has pumped over 1.6 million barrels a day over its self-imposed output targets for April month, increasing OPEC group output to over 31.6 million barrels per day.

That’s it for now!

Regards,

George Murphy

Group researcher/Member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyNDP

Gas plays up for the long weekend
Distillates to drop

It was a late night in the House of assembly, so I'm going to keep this one short!

Well, you just knew it was going to happen, and that all good things must come to pass. memorial day weekend in the US and the Victoria day weekend, or May two-four, as we call it, is here.

Here's what I have for this week:

• Heating and stove oils to drop by 1.43 cents a litre.
• Diesel also is showing down by 1.6 cents a litre, and...
• Gasoline shows an added 2.2 cents a litre.

Somehow, you just knew...

Regards,

George

Consumers will catch a break!
Heating, Diesel and Gas all down

Late night in the House, so I’ll keep this short and sweet!

Here’s what I have for Thursday morning, with all data in for the week:

· Heating and stove oils show a drop of 3.14 cents/Litre on the way.

· Diesel is down by 3.6 cents/Litre, and…

· Gasoline shows a drop of 4.1 cents/Litre coming down the pipes.

Some market highlights

· West Texas Intermediate is down close on $8.00US a barrel this week.

· Brent crude closes at $112.48 US a barrel.

· American Petroleum Institute measure of crude oil inventories shows an increase for the past week of an added 7.8 million barrels of stock, the highest crude inventory since 1990. There’s plenty of crude and no one using it. These numbers will be weighed against the US Energy Information Administration’s report on inventories tomorrow (Wednesday).

· All this started off on Friday when a weak US jobs growth forecast was said to be a possible sign of further slowing in the US economy.

That’s it from me for this week!

Regards,

George Murphy

Group researcher/member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyNDP

Coming Down the Pipeline...

Just a short note:

By the look of things in the markets, consumers will see a drop to all prices when the PUB adjusts prices this coming Thursday. Between the France and Greek elections, it seems that countries like Norway have begun to dump Greek and Ireland bonds and that has suddenly led to a whole new lot of uncertainty in the markets in the last couple of hours.

What started it all? Weak US jobs numbers out late Friday.

West Texas intermediate has dropped to $96.18 a barrel, while Brent has dropped to $111.17 US a barrel as of 9:30PM Newfoundland and Labrador time Sunday.

Here’s what I have so far, keeping in mind that there are still two business days yet to attain for final data:

· Heating and stove oils are down by 2.76/Litre.

· Diesel is down by 3.2/litre, and…

· Gasoline is down by 4.2 cents a litre.

If trading sends oil down further, consumers can expect these numbers to also be down further. In the meantime, I don’t expect a huge “recovery” based on the weekend economic news! Looks like there’s a “market correction” underway.

I’ll be in touch with all on this one…

Regards,

George Murphy

Group researcher/Member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyNDP

Gasoline numbers down slightly

Conception Bay South, NL, May 1, 2012- Numbers are down for gasoline again this week, but not by much. Consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador will find out the exact figures when the Public Utilities Board adjusts numbers this coming Thursday morning.

"Gasoline numbers are down, but just by a cent a litre," Murphy said, adding that there's still some instability in the markets from the past week's activity."Even though oil is up, there's a reluctance in the gas numbers that still is keeping away traders for the time-being. Even though inventories are showing draws against available inventories, production in the US northeast still has not returned fully. Therefore, when that refiner capacity returns to the northeast US markets, there is, I believe, some fear amongst traders that gasoline inventories will actually start to show close to a neutral position,or show slight increases, indicative of slowing consumer demand during the run-up to the summer driving season. Hopefully, this will be a good sign of what consumers can expect for the summer as we get closer to the summer pricing prediction that should come in by the Victoria Day holiday."

Heating and stove oils show a modest 67/100ths of a cent increase, while diesel fuels are predicted to increase also by 1.1 cents a litre. "I still don't see a solid start downwards for numbers in the distillate fuels, and that concerns me. If we're going to see any kind of pricing relief from high heating and stove oil costs this coming winter, the numbers are going to have to start downwards sooner rather than later. The damage that high home energy costs are doing to family budgets the last few years must be incredible."

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For more information, contact;

George Murphy

Group researcher/Member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyNDP

 

Prices to drop Thursday

Media release

Conception Bay South, NL, April 24, 2012- Consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador will see a large retreat in gasoline prices when the Public Utilities Board adjusts prices for this Thursday. That’s according to George Murphy, group researcher for the Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices.

“Numbers are all down, but distillate fuels are still not showing concerted drops like I had hoped. Heating and stove oils are only forecast to drop by 87/100ths of a cent, while diesel fuel shows a modest drop of 1.8 cents a litre. The big news for consumers comes with gasoline, with that number showing a drop of 7.1 cents a litre. Keep in mind that there’s possibly a lot of volatility in the numbers,” Murphy said.

“From all appearances, gasoline is dropping because of, not only a glut of oil in the markets, but also the fact that gasoline inventories haven’t seen a large impact, even though refining capacity in the US northeast has been severely curtailed. Even though inventories were impacted by the lack of product supplied, we’re still at a point where there’s a large inventory of gasoline over the same timeframe last year. Consumers can take some heart in the fact that some of these refineries should be coming back online shortly. They still can’t be complacent over this drop in prices however, and should still show their anger by conserving as much as possible and help keep building inventories. Prices should retreat further if consumers collectively send the inventory message as a result.”

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For more information, contact;

George Murphy

Group researcher/Member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyNDP

A Retreat on the Gas Front

Here's the latest for everyone watching the markets, and, if you're into it, the numbers for gasoline have been captivating!

There's a retreat happening out there with gasoline, and a lot of people are probably going to wonder why. My thinking is that, even though there have been draws on inventory, along with total product supplied also dropping, you have to come to the realization that any drop in inventories has to be "industry caused".

Just because consumers are consuming doesn't mean that they're solely responsible for the impact on inventories. If you cut back on overall supply by cutting back on the refiner's ability to produce gasoline, then any draw-down on inventories is artificial in nature and doesn't reflect the reality of the markets. My thinking here is that consumers have collectively impacted inventories as a result of consuming product, but not consuming it to the degree that the industry thought it would, because of the price that gasoline was selling for lately.

Make sense?

It will by Thursday, if you hold back on your next major purchase: See, I have gasoline dropping by 7.3 cents a litre by then, barring the fact that we still have two trading days to go.

Either way, the numbers are still going to be down, but we'll need the final two days data to really tell you how much you'll be saving when the next price setting is due to come. I'll let you all know exactly how much on Tuesday night.

You might want to tell your friends to hold back until then too...

Regards until then!

George

Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyNDP

Hello to all,

I’ll keep this one short, as there aren’t too many major changes this week around. Sorry this one comes late. I was down to Marystown doing some work, and, I’m literally just in the door. I know this one will come late as well to those on the auto emailer, so, my apologies in advance!

· Heating and stove oils show just a 4/100ths of a cent upwards movement.

· Diesel shows a 3/10ths of a cent upwards move, and…

· Gasoline is up by 1.2 cents a litre.

A hopeful sign from the markets in the last two days of trading as, in spite of oil prices supported around $104 US a barrel, numbers for gasoline have dropped from recent highs. The first five days of trading initially showed close on three cents a litre in upwards movement for this week, but since then, all numbers have been in decline. That start of a downturn may show itself to consumers next week, if the trend continues. So far, the numbers are close on four cents lower than what this week’s price settings will be.

Keep your fingers crossed, as we could see the start of a break for consumers in next week’s price setting. The trend is also showing for heating and stove oils, but still does not show in diesel numbers as of yet.

Market notes

· A good build in crude oil inventories with this week’s numbers showing an added 3.9 million barrels.

· Gasoline inventories are down by 3.7 million barrels, but gasoline inventories remain well above the average range, according to the Energy Information Administration. Oddity here is that total gasoline supplied to the markets was down by 2.8 per cent, probably indicative of a sign of Big Oil trying to keep supply and demand ‘In balance”. We’re still almost six million barrels over where we were this same time last year, so, there is no shortage.

· Another drop in distillate inventories as well, this time down by 2.9 million barrels.

· Refiner capacity was measured as 84.7 percentage points, again, down from last week.

Hope this helps everyone, and again, my apologies for the lateness of this one. Sometimes, my other duties are going to have to come first.

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Regards for now!

George Murphy

Group researcher/Member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

Twitter: @GeorgeMurphyNDP