Crude oil and refined product futures were lower at midday Friday after a strong overnight move briefly pushed the front-month West Texas Intermediate contract to highs last reached in late April.
The overnight rally raised the NYMEX August WTI contract to $82.72/bbl as fears of a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah rose.
The WTI contract wasn't able to hold onto the overnight gains and fell back to either side of $81/bbl. Just ahead of midday, the August WTI contract was down by 33cts to $81.41/bbl. The more active September Brent contract was off by about the same amount to $84.96/bbl. The lightly traded August Brent contract, which expires Friday, was 7cts higher at $86.46/bbl, maintaining a steep backwardation.
NYMEX July gasoline and diesel contracts, which also expire at the end of Friday's session, were down by about 2cts, with the August contracts modestly lower.
The July ULSD contract was off by 2.42cts to $2.5233/gal and July RBOB was 1.72cts lower at $2.5284/gal.
August refined product contracts also rose in overnight trading, but couldn't hold onto the gains.
The NYMEX August ULSD contract, which briefly rose above $2.60/gal on Thursday and got as high as $2.5965/gal Friday morning, was off by 1.3cts to $2.5499/gal near midday. The carry in ULSD is getting a bit wider as outer months are seeing lighter losses.
U.S. spot market moves so far on Friday have tracked futures.
The NYMEX August RBOB contract was about 1.5cts lower at $2.5103/gal and that along with low July activity, narrowed the backwardation to roughly 1.6cts.
Cash markets were a bit more mixed, with Gulf Coast CBOB nearly unchanged and San Francisco CARBOB and Pacific Northwest gasoline about 7cts lower.
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
06-28-24 1310ET
