It's Valentine's Day and the analysts who trade Brent must be seeing red because the Cushing terminals' discount for NYMEX crude is now $18.27. It averaged $0.76 last year. Egypt may not be the great worry it was the past three weeks but there is an undercurrent of unrest in Algeria, Yemen, and Iran. The Middle East crudes are bench marked off Brent and any geopolitical problems arising in the area will affect Brent first. In the mean time, the huge builds of inventory of NYMEX-based crude in Cushing continues to act as a counterweight to upward price pressures. However, product prices continue to move opposite rather than in tandem with crude and both saw moderately high increases today.
Today, WTI -76¢, $84.81; Brent +$2.04, $103.08; gasoline +5.19¢, $2.5174; distillate +5.38¢, $2.7504.
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