Crude oil contracts were seeing losses Friday, while gasoline and diesel prices were seeing small gains as energy futures head toward the end of the week following two days of losses.

Oil and gasoline contracts are on track to end the week with modest gains, and diesel futures appear headed for week-to-week losses.

The May contract for U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude was down 10cts at $80.97 a barrel at about 11:45 a.m. ET, while June prices were 9cts lower at $80.55/bbl. Prices are about 50cts off both earlier highs and lows for the day.

The May contract for European benchmark Brent crude was 7cts lower to $85.71/bbl while June prices were 8cts in the red to $85.16/bbl.

Diesel futures have shaken off earlier losses to post gains, with the April contract rising 1.08cts to $2.6796/gal while May prices are 0.81ct higher to $2.6597 a gallon. Gasoline futures are seeing gains accelerate, with the April RBOB contract adding 1.16cts to $2.7387/gal, while May prices rose 0.85ct to $2.7207/gal.

The front-month RBOB contract is nearly 2cts/gal higher than its settlement last Friday while the diesel contract is nearly 5cts/gal lower than where it ended last week. Crude contracts are seeing week-to-week gains of about 40cts/bbl.

Energy prices are being pressured Friday by a stronger dollar, which has risen 0.9% against a basket of foreign currencies on the U.S. Dollar Index. A strong greenback presents headwinds for dollar-denominated energy contracts, as it makes them more expensive for traders using other currencies.

The decline in energy prices over the last two days has provided some relief for retailers, who are seeing gross gasoline and diesel rack-to-retail margins--the profit for selling fuel--rise from levels seen recently that were among the lowest in over a year. The national average gasoline margin on Friday is 30cts/gal, up 5.4cts from a week ago, according to OPIS MarginPro data. The average diesel margin is 55.2cts/gal, an increase of 3.2cts from last week.


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 Steve Cronin, scronin@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-22-24 1243ET