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Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill today, wholesale prices are UP 5 cents, Friday AM wholesale prices will drop 5 cents – Be Safe!
NYMEX Crude       $  56.96 DN $.0300
NY Harbor ULSD  $1.8399 UP  $.0006
NYMEX Gasoline   $2.0343 DN $.0275
NEWS

U.S. oil futures took a modest turn lower before the close Thursday. Futures finished the holiday-shortened week with a loss of 4.5% following U.S. weekly reports showing an unexpected rise in crude supplies and 2015’s first increase in the number of active oil-drilling rigs. Earlier, prices had found support from dollar weakness in the wake of the latest monthly U.S. jobs report. Prices, however, immediately began to pare gains after the weekly rig-count data.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate August crude shed 3 cents to settle at $56.93 a barrel. For the week, oil saw loss of around 4.5%. Brent crude added 6 cents, 0.1% to $62.07 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange, down close to 2% for the week. Somewhat softer-than-expected monthly U.S. employment data weighed on the dollar and that was supportive to dollar-denominated oil prices for most of the session.

But Baker Hughes on Thursday reported that the number of active oil drilling rigs saw a weekly climb of 12 to 640 as of July 2. That marked the first weekly increase for oil rigs in 30 weeks. The increase in rig counts “caps off a bearish week of data for the oil markets” after the Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday an unexpected crude-supply build and elevated domestic-production levels, said Tyler Richey, co-editor of The 7:00’s Report. “This week’s data further support the thesis that a bearish fundamental trend has emerged, at least for the near term, which will continue to pressure WTI prices, with the next level of notable support down in the low $50’s,” he said.

WTI oil prices suffered a drop of 4.2% on Wednesday after the EIA said crude supplies rose 2.4 million barrels last week. “The build in supplies, coupled with a reported jump of 1% in the refinery rate, gives the bear camp plenty to work with,” said Tim Evans, chief market strategist at Long Leaf Trading Group. Traders also tracked the latest twists in the Greek debt crisis that continues to roil financial markets as well as the Iran nuclear negotiations that could eventually unlock millions of barrels of Iranian crude.