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Prices in the oil sector are under pressure today prompted by a gigantic build in distillate inventories last week as reported in today’s Department of Energy (DOE) petroleum report.

Over the past few months, there has been a lot of negativity in the global fuels market.  The price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic are at the top of the list when it comes to driving crude oil prices to historic lows.  However, recently there has been some small and simple actions that show signs of turnaround in a positive direction in the crude market. The Texas Railroad commission, production cuts, relaxing of local travel restrictions, and construction resuming, will all have a positive influence on the oil market.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Andrew Wheeler recently said that he anticipates the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards rule to be finalized within the next month or two.  The primary questions to answer at this point are, what does the rule seek to accomplish and how does this affect heavy-duty trucks?

As the end of this week winds down and people prepare for the holidays next week, light liquidity will most likely be the name of the game in our energy markets. Light liquidity means trading volume is lower than normal which is to be expected during this time of year. Therefore, the bid/ask spreads are wider. Meaning that if the computer-driven trading houses decide to either buy or sell a lot of volume, the market can move violently in one direction rather quickly. What does this mean for our industry? This means that our customers can be very opportunistic especially if we see a retracement in prices after this rally we’ve seen since the beginning of December.

As everyone woke up to the first punch of winter weather this morning, as a fuel distributor, it certainly makes us think about the low level of diesel inventories in PADD 1 and the potential impact it will have on our customers this winter.