Nymex Overview: Petroleum Futures Rally, but RVP Transition Affects Gasoline — OPIS

Petroleum futures staged a brisk rally Monday morning, on what some believe is a response to recent overselling in the market, while some gasoline prices weakened on the switch to a higher RVP.

There is plenty of bearish sentiment surrounding 2025, but the remainder of this year could still see demand at least slightly outpace supply.

The Brent futures market, for example, sported its first-ever short skew among large traders. Never before has there been a short bias among the large funds in the North Sea benchmark, and many observers feel that it reflects overkill in positioning.

Brent initially rallied by more than $1.75/bbl, but some of those gains gave way to a more modest increase of $1.20/bbl to $72.81/bbl. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate was hovering at $70.06/bbl, reflecting a gain of $1.41/bbl after an early trip to $70.70/bbl.

Gasoline was stronger for futures but mixed for physical prices. October RBOB added 4.74cts/gal to $1.9776/gal. New York Harbor cash prices for RBOB and CBOB were about 5cts/gal lower since summer RVP standards gave way to easier-to-attain autumn vapor pressure restrictions over the weekend.

The glacial pace of retail gasoline prices continued through the weekend. The pace slowed and the national average price slipped to $3.208/gal Monday morning. That puts it more than 66cts/gal below year-ago levels, amounting to the stiffest deflation since 2023.

Diesel was not as strong as gasoline and there has been an increase in spread trading with buyers thinking the diesel premiums of 12-20cts/gal might ease in coming days and weeks.

October ULSD rose just 1.4cts/gal to $2.0983/gal and cash prices were up 1.25-1.5cts/gal across the country.

This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

--Reporting by Tom Kloza, tkloza@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 16, 2024 12:51 ET (16:51 GMT)

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