Market Commentary

Today is the last day to buy a contract his week. No contracts will be offered tomorrow Thursday, December 23, or Friday, December 24. Today is the last day to buy a forward contract until next Monday, December 27th.  The average estimates for the DOE inventory report from the Bloomberg […]

Yesterday was a volatile day of trading in the energy markets. Price fell almost 7% during the day hitting the lowest level in the past three weeks. The increasing cases of the Omicron variant have made traders nervous that new restrictions to ease the spread will slow fuel demand.  Prices […]

The market is selling off hard this morning as Omicron fears push prices lower. The Omicron variant was discovered about a month ago and has already been reported in 89 countries. This rapidly spreading variant has caused The Netherlands to go on lockdown and several other European countries are considering […]

Energy prices closed at a three-week high yesterday on the news of the EIA inventory report showing a decline in crude oil stocks and strong numbers in implied demand for gasoline and diesel fuel. The Fed news that they will speed up reducing monetary stimulus and then later raise interest […]

Energy prices were lower yesterday and have settled into a sideways range. The major concern keeping prices stuck is the Omicron coronavirus variant causing world oil demand to fall. The US is also going to sell 18 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on December 17th.  […]

The DOE numbers had crude oil inventories down 241,000 barrels and Cushing, Ok crude stocks were up 2.373 million barrels. Gasoline stocks were up 3.882 million barrels and distillates were up 2.733 million barrels. Inventory levels are still on the lower side of the 5-year averages and overall that is […]

The positive outlook has returned to the market as money looking for returns brushes off the concerns about the Omicron variant and piles back into the energy markets. Bullish headlines brought out the buyers. Saudi Arabia raised its official selling price to the US and Asian market on crude oil. […]

The Omicron variant has put uncertainty into the energy markets,  but it now appears that most traders seem to think its impact on demand may be minor and the demand recovery will begin again. Saudi Arabia raised the selling price for oil shipped to Asia and the US, a move […]

OPEC+ said they would stick to their plan to add 400,000 BPD of oil output in January as they had agreed to each month since August. They did say they would monitor the market closely with the new Omicron strain and make immediate adjustments if necessary. Any decision by OPEC+ […]

Propane inventories were down 952,000 gallons a little less than the expectations. Total propane stocks sit at 72.660 million barrels and last year at this time there were 91.718 million barrels a negative (19.058) million barrel difference. Midwest stocks were down 417,000 barrels putting total Midwest stocks at 24.393 million […]

Jerome Powell added to the selling yesterday as he commented that tapering of the Fed’s assets purchases would likely happen sooner than expected next year on the back of the strengthening economy. He also said that it was pretty clear that the thought of “transitory” is now long gone and […]

The Biden administration said they will continue with their plans to release barrels from the SPR despite crude oil’s recent price pullback. This will add to current bearishness. The administration also said if needed they would be willing to release more barrels from the SPR to calm prices. The nuclear […]