Fueling Strategy: Please top all tanks tonight before 23:00 CST re-top tanks, Thursday AM wholesale prices will go UP almost 2 cents – Be Safe

NYMEX Crude $ 45.15 DN $.5900
NY Harbor ULSD $1.5385 DN $.0090
NYMEX Gasoline $1.6705 DN $.0147

NEWS
Bears retook control of the oil market Wednesday, reversing early gains to send the U.S. benchmark to its lowest finish since March after a larger-than-expected fall in U.S. crude inventories was overshadowed by a rise in supplies of oil products.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate crude-oil futures fell 59 cents, or 1.4%, to settle at $45.15 a barrel—the lowest close since March 18. Earlier in Wednesday’s session, the contract had jumped as high as $46.70 a barrel after the weekly data from the Energy Information Administration showed U.S. commercial-crude inventories fell by 4.4 million barrels in the week ended July 31.

The overall trading action in oil remains “quite bearish,” with crude finding support Tuesday and early Wednesday on apparent short covering after a rout drove futures to multimonth lows earlier in the week, said Tariq Zahir, analyst at Tyche Capital Advisors, in a phone interview. A survey of economists by oil-data firm Platts had produced a consensus forecast for an inventory fall of 1.6 million barrels. The EIA noted, however, that at 455.3 million barrels, U.S. crude inventories remain near levels not seen this time of year for at least the last 80 years. The drop in crude inventories was offset by a rise in gasoline stocks of more than 800,000 barrels, analysts said, while distillate inventories, which includes diesel and heating oil, rose by more than 700,000 barrels.

Meanwhile, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries continues to pump heavily, adding to global supplies. In the U.S., the rig count rose last week, underlining concerns about U.S. production. Zahir expects oil to plumb the lows set earlier this year, with pressure likely to remain until there are signs producers are ready to begin seriously cutting production. Nymex futures are less than 4% above their 2015 low of $43.46 a barrel from March 17. Brent crude the global oil benchmark—lost 40 cents, or 0.8%, to close at $49.59 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange.

Persistently high oil output from the U.S. and some of the world’s biggest petroleum producers, coupled with concerns about an economic slowdown in China, have soured investor sentiment in recent weeks. Oil prices plunged into a bear market last month and are off more than 50% from last year. Market participants are also looking for clues of the timing of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s anticipated interest-rate rise. Many experts and some Fed officials expect the hike, the first in more than nine years, to happen in September. “Higher interest rates could limit growth in the huge oil-consuming country—affecting oil demand as well—in an already oversupplied market,” said Michael Poulsen, oil analyst at Global Risk Management.