Quote:
Originally Posted by ar1458
do you think it is worth it to wait till june ????
|
If it is of any help to you, here's a quick look-see at what's happened to prices and price relationships in the domestic petroleum markets in the last two months, since March 12:
After a period, of first a sharp move in the latter part of April (gasoline and heating oil were both up around 20¢ a gallon; and, crude oil was up $6.00 a barrel) and then an even sharper down move in early May (gasoline declined 33¢ a gallon; heating oil declined 25¢ a gallon; and, crude oil declined $11 a barrel),
prices, on balance, were mixed, with gasoline lower while heating oil is higher (and,
despite "common wisdom", that's the normal seasonal price pattern for this time of the year as the industry has, or should have covered their anticipated gasoline supplies and is gearing up to cover their expected heating oil requirements before the Fall/Winter heating season begins).
Wholesale gasoline prices have decreased 4¢ a gallon or 2.0%, wholesale heating oil prices have increased 7¢ a gallon or 3.1%, with the result that the combined product value (gasoline + heating oil) remained virtually unchanged, while the cost of crude oil has decreased $6 a barrel or 6.9%, leading to an increase in the crack spread (the gross operating margin) of $6 a barrel or 51.5%.
At the end of today's (Wednesday, May 12) trading, wholesale prices (gasoline and heating oil is in $/gallon, combined product value, crack spread and crude oil is in $/42-gallon barrel and natural gas is in $/mmBtu) were:
.........................Friday...Wednesday....net ..........%......
........................03/12/10...05/12/10....change...change..
Gasoline...........$2.2550....$2.2104...-$0.0446.....-2.0%
Heating oil.........$2.0940....$2.1591..+$0.0651....+3.1%
Combined Product
Value................$ 92.01....$ 91.97.....-$ 0.04.......0.0%
Crack Spread..+$ 10.77..+$ 16.32....+$ 5.55....+51.5%
Crude oil...........$ 81.24....$ 75.65.....-$ 5.59.......-6.9%
Natural Gas......$ 4.400.....$ 4.284.....- $0.116.......-2.6%
Notes:
[ 1 ] The above calculation of the crack spread (gross refinery operating margin) assumes that each 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields 25.2 gallons of gasoline and 16.8 gallons of heating oil and other distillates, such as diesel and jet fuel.
[ 2 ] Also, please note that retail gasoline prices tend to be at a $0.75 to $1.25/gallon premium to the wholesale gasoline price as traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which would mean that a wholesale price of $2.21/gallon would indicate a retail price of $2.96 to $3.46/gallon, depending on where in the U.S. the retail pump might be located.
Anyone can easily monitor the gasoline, heating oil and crude oil regular session futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange (because these prices are available at no charge, they come with a 30-minute delay) by going to:
Gasoline futures prices
Heating oil futures prices
Crude Oil futures prices
And, in case you would like to see,
Natural Gas futures prices
You can monitor the electronic over-night session by removing the "=2" from each symbol (example: remove the "=2" from "xrb=2" to get "xrb", the symbol for the electronic over-night price quotes for gasoline).
