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Thursday we saw ULSD settle out to erase most of Wednesdays drop - Wednesday it closed down -.0136 to 2.4586, and Thursday settled out at 2.4703 (+.0117). Gas not only erased Wednesday's 3 cent drop, but rebounded up +.0622 for the day to 2.2109. This morning, ULSD is trending up about a penny/penny and a half, while gas is hanging in the +.005 range, both having backed off earlier jumps.
So what's going on?
EIA weekly petroleum report showed inventory gains across the board.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced this morning it was downgrading its outlook for Global growth in the wake of disappointing growth in the Euro Zone and Japan. This is the third time this year the IMF has revised its outlook down (this time to 3.3% from 3.8%) and out of the last twelve forecasts in the past 3 years, they've revised 9 of the estimates down. According to Fox News, the IMF consistently has based projections off of an assumption that wealthier nations would be able to reverse their high debt, high unemployment environments a lot faster than they have been.
The IMF's gloomy outlook on the Euro Zone and bleak projections for growth potential in emerging markets has been another force behind the rally of the US dollar, as the US economy has started to stabilize versus other major nations, especially France and Germany. Germany hit a record 5 year low on industrial production, not good considering they are one of the critical economic players in the zone.
(image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Wednesday's EIA report showed that the API projected Crude drops come to fruition, falling 1.78 million barrels. As we all saw this pushed up Crude & ULSD prices on the day, with ULSD closing up .0398 to 2.9275, and Crude up to 100.81, once again hanging by the new (unfortunately) benchmark of $100 we've all been hoping to drop from for quite some time now.
Brent ticked upwards this week as well on EU discussion of stricter sanctions on Russia. Putin had announced earlier this week that Russian troops had withdrawn from the border, but no such withdrawal happened according to everyone else in the area, so more sanctions are back on the table it appears. Economic sanctions on the world's second largest energy exporter are, unsurprisingly, not great for downward price pressure.
NYMEX values appeared to find support just above the 2.90 level on front month HO after a long cold stretch. The Polar Vortex that gripped a large portion of the Country, and plagued us in the Northeast with long terminal lines, appears to be subsiding. Many of us are getting a well deserved breather as we return to somewhat normalcy.
We have all been in this far too long to get overly excited when the pits fall a few cents - like New England weather, wait and it will change.
As news continually breaks on developments on the Syrian conflict and the potential implications of US or other world power intervention in the region, stocks are dropping and commodities are going through the roof.