Energy Market Updates

Futures markets surged higher yesterday on both a breakdown of Ukrainian-Russian talks along with naval “exercises” by Russian and Iranian fleets next to the Straits of Hormuz. A long talked about chokepoint in shipping and oil movements, any stress in that region will trigger panic buying. Good news is that east coast cash prices for products did not move has high as futures, which is reflected in your pricing. Still Diesel futures sit roughly $.50 higher than early JAN, touching the very top end of the range. Warmer temps into the Northeast are also helping to ease physical pricing as product movement and usage gets back to a normal pace.

Once again we ended last week with a nice correction only to give it all back so far this week.  Again finding ourselves smack dab in the middle of the summer range.  Forward looking sentiment appears to have fully accepted we might be in for a bear run soon.  A start to an Israeli-Hamas peace deal looks to be on the horizon.  A mixed bag of Inventory data this week that is likely to be corrected due to the shutdown-Distillate demand strangely jumped almost 8% over last year.

The on again off again foreign policy approach has now reached “ludicrous speed”. In a matter of hours, a delay for Chevron refining operations in Venezuela was granted...