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News Release 499
CRUDE AND NATURAL GAS PRICES ON THE RISE
Volume 34-499 |
Contact: Larry Archer |
(For immediate release) |
573-751-3807 |
JEFFERSON CITY, MO, NOV. 9, 2006 -- Colder regional temperatures that required heating loads increased demand for natural gas, and likely influenced higher natural gas prices that settled at $7.82 per MMBtu on Nov. 8, according to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Energy Center's bi-weekly Energy Bulletin. While the price of natural gas has increased $1.01 in the past two weeks and $1.83 in the past month, it is still well below last year's price of $11.67 per MMBtu, a difference of 33 percent.
Crude oil prices also settled higher this week at $59.83 per barrel on Nov. 8, following the U.S. Department of Energy's (USDOE) weekly storage report that showed U.S. supplies of diesel fuel fell by nearly 3 million barrels. Distillate output by U.S. refineries fell by nearly 170,000 barrels per day last week. Crude prices have moved within a $5 price band for the past several weeks as supplies have remained relatively firm. Prices continue to trend nearly $19 per barrel or 24 percent below the mid-July price peak of $78.40 per barrel.
Supplies of diesel fuel have decreased by 10.3 million barrels in the past 4 weeks due to higher seasonal agricultural demand, lower domestic production related to the transition to ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD) and lower imports. This has resulted in recent reports of tight supplies or spot outages in southern and western Missouri. However, Missouri's average retail diesel fuel price is stable, increasing only $0.03 per gallon since Oct. 2 to $2.43 per gallon on Nov. 6. The retail average is nearly $0.23 cents lower than a year ago and is also lower than the U.S. average of $2.51 per gallon.
On Nov. 6, Missouri's average retail price for regular gasoline was $2.03 per gallon, unchanged from last month and about $0.10 or 4 percent lower than last year's average retail price and remains below the U.S. average price of $2.20 and the Midwest average retail price of $2.19 per gallon.
National demand for motor gasoline decreased last week to an average of 9.2 million barrels per day, falling by 200,000 barrels per day compared to the previous week. Demand had been on a downward trend since Sept. 1, but rebounded slightly in mid-October. U.S. gasoline supplies are at 204 million barrels—just 2.9 million barrels higher than last year's level at this time. On Oct. 6, US gasoline supplies were 23 million barrels higher compared to the same period in 2005.
The complete Energy Bulletin for Nov. 9 is available online at www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/transportation/EB110906.pdf. The department's bimonthly energy bulletins are available online at www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/transportation/fb.htm.
For news releases on the Web, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/newsrel. For a complete listing of the department's upcoming meetings, hearings and events, visit the department's online calendar at www.dnr.mo.gov/calendar/search.do.
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