Fueling Strategy: Wholesale prices are down 5 cents today/tonight, Thursday AM they’ll go back UP 5 then another 6 cents Friday AM so please refill all tanks tonight before 23:00 CST – Be Safe Today!

NYMEX Crude $ 46.23 UP $1.5700
NY Harbor ULSD $1.3967 UP $0.0592
NYMEX Gasoline $1.5815 UP $0.0958

NEWS
Oil futures soared past $46 a barrel on Wednesday to settle at their highest level in more than six months. The climb was supported by a U.S. government report that revealed an unexpected weekly drop in crude inventories and a ninth straight week of falling domestic production. June West Texas Intermediate crude tacked on $1.57, or 3.5%, to settle at $46.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The settlement was the highest since Nov. 4. July Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange added $2.08, or 4.6%, to end at $47.60 a barrel.

Prices turned higher after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a 3.4 million-barrel decline in crude-oil supplies for the week ended May 6. That was contrary to the 3.45 million-barrel increase reported by trade group the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday, and above the 300,000-barrel rise forecast by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts. Figures from the EIA and API can sometimes see wide discrepancies given that U.S. companies are required to report accurate data to the government, while data given to the trade group is voluntary. “The American Petroleum Institute got it completely wrong,” said Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at Forex.com and City Index. The official data from the EIA showed that crude stockpiles dropped by a “surprisingly large” 3.4 million barrels last week. “The drawdown may well have been due to the wildfires in Canada as the latter’s main export market is the U.S.,” he said, with data showing that U.S. crude oil imports were down 5,000 barrels a day from the previous week. “Imports are likely to fall further this week because of the significant reduction of oil output in Canada,” Razaqzada said.

The EIA also said that total domestic production fell by 23,000 barrels a day to 8.802 million barrels a day last week. That marked a ninth week of output declines in a row. The huge supply drawdown “shows that the oil market, especially in the U.S., is tightening rapidly, which should be supportive of prices in the short run,” said Nico Pantelis, head of research at Secular Investor. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries “won’t be in a hurry to cap production, after all.” Pantelis said he expects to “see some balancing in the coming months” between $50 and $60 per barrel.

EIA data also showed that gasoline supplies fell by 1.2 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles were down 1.6 million barrels last week. The S&P Global Platts survey forecast an 800,000-barrel decline for gasoline and a 1.3 million-barrel drop for distillates, which include heating oil.