NEW YORK, March 12 (Reuters) – America’s periodic
gasoline price debate is usually a mix of willful ignorance and
cynicism that achieves little but oil executives must be hoping
the latest episode dies down before the United States’ massive
fuel exports get much attention.

After all, exports of diesel fuel, and increasingly
gasoline, are now crucial profit centers for many U.S.
refineries, hard pressed by shrinking domestic demand.

NEW YORK, Feb 29 (Reuters) – Monthly data for December
2011 released on Wednesday shows U.S. gasoline demand continued
to come in well below year-ago levels even as the economy
accelerated, suggesting some of the weakness seen in more recent
monthly data may not be out of place.

Analysts have questioned the picture painted of U.S.
gasoline demand by the Energy Information Administration’s
weekly “product supplied” estimate as it has regularly come in
down 5 percent or more from year-ago levels.

NEW YORK, Feb 29 (Reuters) – Western policymakers are
itching to release strategic oil stocks after their Iran
policies triggered a potentially damaging surge in crude prices,
but the logistics issues that dampened the impact of last year’s
emergency oil sales are more daunting now.

The temptation to release stocks is great. Leaving aside
election year concerns, Western governments have a legitimate
concern that rising energy costs may derail the still-fragile
economic recovery.

NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Asian crude oil buyers
are starting to balk at increasingly costly Brent crude oil. The
sustainability of the current rally hinges on Asia recovering
its appetite for Atlantic basin crude.

The Brent-Dubai exchange of futures for swaps (EFS) quote
DUB-EFS-1M, the premium holders of Asian benchmark Dubai swaps
must pay over their postion to switch into Brent, is signalling
a growing weariness with the recent spike in Brent prices.

NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Asian crude oil buyers
are starting to balk at increasingly costly Brent crude oil. The
sustainability of the current rally hinges on Asia recovering
its for Atlantic basin crude.

The Brent-Dubai exchange of futures for swaps (EFS) quote
DUB-EFS-1M, the premium holders of Asian benchmark Dubai swaps
must pay over their postion to switch into Brent, is signalling
a growing weariness with the recent spike in Brent prices.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The increasingly tense standoff between the West and Iran must undoubtedly have big Asian oil consumers looking anxiously at their meagre strategic oil stocks.

China, in particular, must feel dangerously exposed to the vagaries of the oil market with Iran threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit point for much of its oil imports.

NEW YORK, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Remember the great
European sweet crude crunch of 2011? It is little more than a
historical curiosity now. Instead an abundance of sweet crude is
now weighing on prices in the Atlantic basin and facilitating
arbitrage flows to Asia.

This sweet crude surplus has been misunderstood by some
observers, who have struggled to reconcile the steep
backwardation in Brent crude futures –suggesting tight
supplies– and Brent’s relative weakness to lower quality
grades, like Russian Urals.

NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) – The roaring bull run in Asian
crude oil markets has been brought to a screeching halt by
arbitrage players but traders would be remiss not to keep one
eye on the Dubai screen for signs of another flare-up.

The gap between Asian benchmark Dubai swaps and Brent crude
futures has tumbled to a one-year low near $3 a barrel,
completing the unwinding of the blowout in the spread caused by
the Libyan civil war. (See Chart 1)

NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) – The roaring bull run in Asian
crude oil markets has been brought to a screeching halt by
arbitrage players but traders would be remiss not to keep one
eye on the Dubai screen for signs of another flare-up.

The gap between Asian benchmark Dubai swaps and Brent crude
futures has tumbled to a one-year low near $3 a barrel,
completing the unwinding of the blowout in the spread caused by
the Libyan civil war. (See Chart 1)

NEW YORK, Nov 15 (Reuters) – U.S. natural gas producers can
only dream of achieving the crude oil-linked prices companies
elsewhere get for their output but a quiet beneficiary from the
shale gas revolution is the U.S. refining sector.

For gas producers, the holy grail is GTL –gas-to-liquids–
either through enormously expensive plants that turn natural
gas into ultra-clean diesel fuel or by gaining access to other
gas markets where crude oil sets prices.