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Market Close: Feb 12 Up

Fueling Strategy: Please fill as needed tonight, Saturday AM wholesale prices will go up 1/2 cents but keep tanks completely topped due to Sunday AM wholesale prices will jump UP 9 to 10 cents!!! Be Safe Tonight!!

NYMEX Crude $ 29.44 UP $3.2300
NY Harbor ULSD $1.0693 UP $0.0902
NYMEX Gasoline $1.0432 UP $0.1015

NEWS
Oil futures enjoyed their best one-day rally on Friday. West Texas Intermediate crude jumped more than 12% as a major oil producer again raised the possibility of a coordinated cut in crude output.

March WTI crude climbed by $3.23, or 12.3%, to settle at $29.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the largest one-day percentage gain since January 2009, according to FactSet data. But WTI prices still suffered a weekly loss of 4.7% on the back of the market’s ongoing supply glut. They had fallen 4.5% to $26.21 Thursday, the lowest settlement since May 6, 2003. Brent crude the global oil benchmark, jumped $3.30, or 11%, to end at $33.36 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange after losing 2.5% in the previous session. For the week, prices still lost 2.9%.

Prices climbed Friday after the United Arab Emirates energy minister said late Thursday that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries were ready to cooperate on possible production cuts. Venezuela, meanwhile, proposed that OPEC and non-OPEC producers should at least freeze output at the current level. The market is taking the comments from the U.A.E. minister “seriously because the U.A.E. is doing an about face,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group. The U.A.E. was “saying a month ago a cut was going to be over their dead body basically,” said Flynn. “Well, maybe hell froze over.”

But OPEC has said before that it is willing cooperate on a production cut if other non-OPEC producers such as Russia participate. Given that, some aren’t convinced that an agreement is any closer than it was before. The minister’s “news is more likely to be poppycock than progress,” because OPEC’s tactics are working, said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData. “The U.S. oil patch is debilitating at a rapid pace” with oil firms maxing out credit lines amid shrinking revenues from lower oil prices, he said. OPEC’s production is also set to rise, with Iran looking to boost its output in the coming months, he added. Still, there are few signs that the global glut of crude will start to shrink soon. On Friday, data from Baker Hughes Inc. showed that the number of active U.S. oil-drilling rigs fell for an eighth-straight week, down 28 to 439.

Meanwhile, with slower demand ahead due to refineries going into planned maintenance, crude stocks are expected to continue to increase. Oil prices haven’t likely hit bottom yet, said Tim Evans, chief market strategist at Long Leaf Trading Group. “There is nothing to support the idea that…global growth issues are going to resolve themselves in the near-term. We believe selling any strong rally is prudent.”