Crude-oil and refined products were trading lower as futures were giving back some of the robust gains from the first half of the week.

Even with prices down Thursday, most contracts were trading well above the lows from the start of the week.

West Texas Intermediate futures passed the $70 mark late Wednesday and early Thursday, but the contract lacked staying power and was closer to slipping below the $69 mark, trading to a low of $69.14.

The rally during the first half of the week was likely the result of short covering, as during the three-day stretch of price gains total open interest dropped by more than 24,000 contracts.

Front-month WTI futures were trading at $69.49/bbl, down 80cts. February Brent was down by a similar amount, last trading at $72.77/bbl and off 75cts.

Brent reached a high of $74 before eventually sliding toward the $72.40 area.

Refined products were down, with RBOB showing larger declines than ULSD.

The diesel contract has had its struggles recently, with December so far a disappointment from a weather demand standpoint. Losses in the diesel contract, though, were inside of a cent as the contract rebounded by about 1.5cts since threatening to fall below the $2.20 level. Currently, front-month ULSD is trading at $2.2146/gal, off about 0.90cts.

RBOB futures were down by just over 2cts on the day at $1.9636/gal and about 0.75cts above the earlier lows.

As strong as RBOB has been this week, spot markets haven't shared the same enthusiasm. New York Harbor gasoline as well as Los Angeles CARBOB have dropped to parity with the Nymex.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco CARBOB market has recently slipped to 4cts under futures.

The middle of the country has turned in a performance much closer to what is being seen in futures as prices have increased by about 11cts in the Chicago and Group 3 markets over the past 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 Denton Cinquegrana, dcinquegrana@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-12-24 1300ET