Crude oil and distillate futures were down to fresh July lows near midday Tuesday as gasoline contracts were holding on to modest gains.
The declines in oil and diesel were enough to erode some of the morning gains in gasoline contracts. There is a widening backwardation in the NYMEX RBOB contracts, with August priced at nearly 4cts above September.
Volumes appeared to be light at midday and liquidity numbers from CME Group had refined product volumes at some of lowest levels of the past several weeks and West Texas Intermediate volumes at some of the lowest levels of the year.
Hurricane Beryl, which made landfall along the Texas coast early Monday, by most accounts caused only limited damage to Gulf Coast energy facilities and that was partly behind the Tuesday morning selling.
At about 11:30 a.m. ET, the August WTI contract was down by about $1, but less than 15 minutes later, the contract was off by just 35cts, as traders appear to be comfortable with the product priced at about $82/bbl, where it last printed.
The September Brent contract was following a similar up-and-down pattern and was down 39cts to $85.36/bbl near midday.
Gasoline futures also bounced between gains and declines in morning trading.
The NYMEX August RBOB contract inched back into the plus column near midday, up 0.74ct to $2.5453/gal, about 1.5cts below its morning high.
U.S. spot refined product prices are mostly tracking NYMEX moves, though some buying in Gulf Coast gasoline has narrowed the discount to futures to 22cts.
The region remains the lowest-priced spot market in the country, but prices are starting to move closer to those in other markets.
NYMEX ULSD contracts may be headed to a third straight down session, with the August ULSD contract off by about 3cts to $2.5496/gal near midday. Since hitting $2.66/gal on July 2, the contract has given back about 11cts.
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 Denton Cinquegrana, dcinquegrana@opisnet.com; Editing by Jeff Barber, jbarber@opisnet.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
07-09-24 1257ET
