Market Commentary
Consumer Confidence Grew Above Expectations in December
December 22, 2022
No contracting tomorrow Friday December 23 or Monday December 26 as our offices are closed. Propane inventories were down 2.921 million barrels putting total propane inventories at 87.415 million barrels. Last year there were 70.023 million barrels so there are now 17.392 million more barrels than last year. Propane inventories […]
Russian Crude Oil Exports Appear to be Slowing
December 21, 2022
The API inventory report called crude oil inventories down 3.1 million barrels, gasoline stocks up 4.5 million barrels and distillates down 828,000 barrels. The average estimated for today’s DOE inventory report from the Bloomberg survey are crude down 131,000, gasoline up 1.819, and distillates up 645,000. The estimate for today’s […]
Volatility Could Be Higher in Short Week
December 20, 2022
This is a short trading week with our offices closed on Friday December 23rd. No contracts offered on that day. Monday December 26 our offices are also closed so no contracting that day. That also makes next week a short trading week. This is likely to result in limited traders […]
US Commits to Replenishing Strategic Petroleum Reserve
December 19, 2022
Supporting prices on Friday was the news that the US will buy 3 million barrels of oil for February delivery to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. However, it is not clear if purchases to fill the depleted reserve will continue or if this purchase is a one-off purchase. Over 6 […]
Central Banks Continue to Raise Interest Rates
December 16, 2022
US retail sales fell by 0.6% in November 2022 from October 2022, which was 3 times higher than the 0.2% fall expected by economist. US manufacturing showed signs of peaking. Production was up by just 1.4% in November compared with the same month a year earlier, the smallest increase for […]
IEA Expects Crude Demand to Increase in 2023
December 14, 2022
The API had crude oil stocks up 7.8 million barrels, gasoline stocks up 900,000 barrels and distillates up 3.4 million barrels. The average estimates for the DOE inventory report today from the Bloomberg survey are calling crude stocks down 3.544 million gasoline up 2.964 and distillates up 2.639. The average […]
Keystone Pipeline Cleanup Shutdown Adds Bullish Sentiment to Markets
December 13, 2022
The energy market had bullish headline to react to yesterday and that rallied price. The news that the Keystone Pipeline may take longer to get back up than thought brought in buyers. This could create another draw to Cushing, Ok crude stocks as well as some disruption of refineries if […]
Gasoline Demand is Down 7.1% Compared to Last Year
December 9, 2022
Energy prices started out yesterday trading higher on the easing COVID restriction in China and on the news of the Keystone Pipeline having to reduce flows due to an oil spill. Once word got out that the spill was not going to impact the line for long, and the fact […]
Wall Street Warns Outlook for 2023 US Economy Looks Grim
December 7, 2022
The API inventory report put out yesterday afternoon said that crude oil stocks were down 6.4 million barrels and the average estimate for today’s DOE report from the Bloomberg survey is calling for a draw of 2.989 million barrels. The API had gasoline stocks up 5.9 million barrels and the […]
OPEC+ Votes to Maintain Production Levels
December 5, 2022
OPEC+ did not make any changes and left their current production cut of 2 million bpd in place until the end of the 2023. The market is also dealing with European Union imports ban and the G7 countries price cap. Crude oil is up over $2 dollars per barrels but […]
Fed Chair Expects Pace of Interest Rate Increases to Slow
December 1, 2022
The DOE inventory report showed a big draw to crude oil stocks of 12.58 million barrels putting total stocks at 419.084 million barrels. Last year stocks were 433.111 and the three year average is 456.083. Gasoline stocks were up 2.77 million barrels putting total stocks at 213.768. Last year was […]
Congress Votes on Rail Strike Legislation
November 30, 2022
The API reported it estimates for this week’s inventory and it called crude down big at 7.9 million barrels. The averages estimate from the Bloomberg survey is for crude to down 2.908 million barrels. The API had gas inventories up 2.9 and the estimates for today from Bloomberg are up […]

