Fueling Strategy: Please keep tanks topped tonight for your safety, Thursday AM wholesale prices will drop slightly – Be Safe

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NYMEX Crude $ 52.49 DN $.8100
NY Harbor ULSD $1.6401 DN $.0287
NYMEX Gasoline $1.6055 UP $.0119

NEWS
Oil futures edged lower on Wednesday following a report showing a surprise build in U.S. crude inventories last week. U.S. crude stocks rose by 2.3 million barrels in the week to Dec. 16 as refineries hiked output, while gasoline stocks and distillate inventories fell, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That was the first weekly build in crude stockpiles in five weeks. Analysts were expecting U.S. crude inventories to fall by 2.5 million barrels, according to a Reuters poll. “I thought (the EIA report) was a mixed bag. We usually draw into year-end on crude and it didn’t happen. Distillate and gasoline draws were supportive,” said Scott Shelton, energy special at ICAP in Durham, North Carolina, adding, “The report was a non-event. This will be forgotten about in an hour.”

Brent Crude fell 81 cents, or 1.5 percent, at $54.54 a barrel by 2:36 p.m. EDT (1936 GMT), while U.S. crude futures settled down 81 cents, or 1.5 percent, at $52.49 a barrel.

The EIA report diverged widely from the American Petroleum Institute industry group’s data released late on Tuesday, which showed a much larger-than-expected 4.1-million-barrel crude draw. Analysts said the API report had helped carry WTI futures to a one-week high earlier in the session. Even though WTI futures for February were little changed, the U.S. front-month was up about 2 percent and trading at its highest level in more than a week due to the contract roll from lower-priced January to higher-priced February on Tuesday. “This week’s trade has thus far provided no surprises as reduced holiday volume has been contributing to some narrow trading ranges,” Jim Ritterbusch, president of Chicago-based energy advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates, said in a report.

Hourly volume in the front-month contract was around 2,300 lots on Wednesday, compared with an average of 2,400 for hourly volume in the second half of December, according to trading data from the InterContinental Exchange. French bank Societe Generale said the agreement between theOrganization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other leading producers to cut production from January “should push crude prices … to the $50-60 range in 2017.”

Oil markets are expected to remain well supplied despite the planned reductions. Russia’s 2016 oil output is expected to total 547.5 million tonnes (11 million barrels per day), a 2.5 percent increase from the previous year, Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters late on Tuesday. Taking advantage of plentiful and relatively cheap crude, refiners especially in Asia are churning out more fuel than the market can absorb.