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Summer driving season: it’s the season to be traveling, what with long weekends, annual leaves and short getaways from the banalities of everyday life at the office. The summer season in the Northern Hemisphere is when demand for crude oil invariably picks up, because fuel consumption increases. In Europe, there’s greater hunger for diesel and in the U.S. there’s a pickup in gasoline demand. Usually. This year’s driving season, however, is shaping up to be a very disappointing exception to the usual seasonal patterns in fuel demand. People are not traveling now as much as analysts expected back in May....

With the Republican National Convention set to wrap up on Thursday, and the Democratic National Convention getting ready to kick off in Philadelphia next week, one prominent oil executive is noting that the industry has fared better under Democrats than Republicans. Scott Sheffield, CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, says that he has noticed the trend during his 42 years in the business. That may sound strange considering the two parties’ diverse platforms when it comes to energy. The Republican party is touting deregulation and has said that it does not support the Paris Climate Accords. Going a few steps further,...

Just over a month ago, when we pointed out that that the gasoline curve was about to shift from contango into backwardation, we said that the gasoline tanker armada off the coast of Singapore was about to start offloading as it would soon become uneconomical to hold product in offshore storage. This meant one thing: China was about to unleash a wave of accelerated gasoline exports across the entire world. We pointed out the unprecedented surge in Chinese gasoline stocks... and added that as China continues to imports tremendous amounts of both crude and product, far greater than actual demand,...

It’s easy for U.S. drivers to forget the high gas prices in recent years after the ultra-lows seen only months ago, but prices going into the summer months of 2016 are still well below what they were this time last year, and the lowest price heading into the summer months since 2009. Despite a recent uptick in the price per barrel of oil—up $20 since the last week of January 2016—U.S. drivers will still enjoy the low gas prices this summer. The spot price for WTI crude oil is still significantly lower than this time last year, trading today at...

Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has asked one of America's most ardent drilling advocates and climate change skeptics to help him draft his energy policy. U.S. Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota - a major oil drilling state - is writing a white paper on energy policy for the New York billionaire, Cramer and sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Cramer was also among a group of Trump advisers who recently met with lawmakers from western energy states, who hope Trump will open more federal land for drilling, a lawmaker who took part in the meeting said. Cramer...

<p>DALLAS (AP) -- Exxon Mobil produced its weakest quarter in more than 16 years as lower oil prices pushed its profit down by 63 percent.</p> <p>Revenue tumbled 28 percent, and the oil giant lost money in its vaunted exploration and production business despite a 2 percent increase in production. It made more money, however, in chemicals.</p>

Everyone is familiar with oil giant Exxon Mobil, so it should be no surprise that investors have kept XOM shares under pressure as oil prices hover near lows that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. What many investors do not realize though is that Exxon is more than just an oil company – the firm also owns the fourth largest chemical company in the world, Exxon Mobil Chemical.

Moody’s put Chevron (CVX) on review for a downgrade on expected negative free cash flow and changed Exxon Mobil‘s (XOM) debt rating outlook to negative, as lower capital reinvestment will likely haunt the oil major for the rest of the decade. The ratings agency predicts negative free cash flow this year and next at Chevron, according to a note from Pete Speer, Moody’s senior vice president. He thinks negative free cash flow could even continue until 2018. Last month Chevron cut its capital spending for this year by 25% vs. 2015, but Moody’s sees negative free cash flow to exceeded...

So you thought plummeting gas prices were going to free you up to get better health care, more education, a little home improvement, or maybe some nicer clothes for your kids? Not if Barack Obama has his way. Watching oil prices fall as American ingenuity floods the market, the president figures he can't let you get too much of a good thing. So he wants to slap a $10 per barrel "fee" on oil, which, with West Texas crude (the benchmark) trading at $21 per barrel on the world market, would make the fee roughly a third of the total...

Gas prices in Chicago are still falling, but the price at the pump is having a negative impact on the economy. ... as the cost to fill up your tank goes down, could this also be a sign -- the economy is tanking? Commodities trader Scott Shellady thinks so. "It's bad for everybody. We are going to lose one-fifth of the jobs we created in 2008," said Shellady. And he doesn't expect a market rebound anytime soon. So if you were hoping to cash in your 401K or IRA and retire in the next year, Shellady says, rethink your plans....

The oil markets are on edge with oil sinking into the $20s per barrel. And last week we reported on one place where oil is already trading in the single-digits. Canada’s bitumen is selling for just $8 per barrel. But even that rock bottom price is higher than what one oil seller earned for a shipment recently. In a bizarre turn of events, Bloomberg reported that Flint Hill Resources, a refining unit owned by the Koch brothers, said that they would purchase sour crude from North Dakota for $-0.50 per barrel. That’s right: a negative price. Oil has become so...

CNBCJanuary 18, 2016 While gas prices are low nationwide, some stations are slashing the fuel's price to rock-bottom levels to the tune of less than 50 cents a gallon. The drastic price cuts are part of a gas price war at three Houghton Lake, Mich., stations. During the last three days, the prices dropped below a buck per gallon, falling as low as 46 cents at Sunrise Marathon. Meanwhile, the Beacon & Bridge gas station was as low as 47 cents, said employees of each station in interviews with CNBC.(snip)

The Koch brothers are actually charging $0.50/bbl to take low grade oil at their Flint Hills Resources refining arm./ North Dakota Sour is a high-sulfur grade of crude and "is a small portion of the state's production, with less than 15,000 barrels a day coming out of the ground," Bloomberg notes, citing John Auers, executive vice president at Turner Mason & Co. in Dallas.

The price of gas hit a stunning low -- just 47 cents per gallon -- in Michigan on Sunday. Michigan was the first state to have gas under $1 in likely over a decade, Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, told ABC News today. A gas station in Houghton Lake, Michigan, hit the 47 cents mark after a price war between three stations in the town, DeHaan said.

I live a half hour away and it's $1.77. Just got word from a friend. Check it with Gas Buddy.

The latest dilemma facing economists is why "unequivocally good" low oil prices haven't sparked excuberant consumer spending across America. We have discussed the simple (though awkward for the establishment) answer many times - soaring costs for 'shelter' and healthcare have hoovered up every penny saved (and more); and now, a new study proves it- exposing the reality that many Obamacare customers pay more than 10 percent of their incomes toward coverage (and some paying considerably more). The shocking findings show that, as CNBC summarizes, One in 10 Obamacare customers who earn between just two and five times the federal poverty...

The glut in oil is expected to continue for the next year or so before balancing in late 2016, but the pain for liquefied natural gas (LNG) could be just beginning. Building LNG export terminals is a long-term proposition. It can take years to develop a greenfield project, bringing a lump of new capacity online long after the project was initially planned, exposing developers to the possibility that market conditions could change in the interim. It is not unlike a conventional oil project, such as an offshore well, which also can take years (as opposed to a much shorter lead...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- For 25 days in a row, U.S. drivers have seen the retail price for gasoline fall and that should be the prevailing trend through year's end, AAA reports. The motor club reports a national average retail price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline at $2.04, a fraction of a cent less than Monday and 15 cents, or 6.7 percent, less than one month ago. In a weekly report on the retail sector, AAA said the end to an unusually busy season of refinery maintenance, largely in the Great Lakes states, and slumping demand are...

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and many of us will spend time with our families eating too much food and strategically waiting for couch spots to open up so we can sneak in a quick catnap when our unsuspecting relatives abandon their posts for another slice of pie. It's a time when we are thankful for the friends, family, and food. We should also be thankful for fracking. Although many people may not know it, fracking has lowered the cost of energy and other goods and services, makes America more energy-independent, and it is done in an environmentally responsible way....

In a world in which the Cold War is a fading memory, North Korea and Cuba endure as museums of communism, so no one will forget how criminally insane it always was. In a world haunted by the specter of persistently falling prices, some countries are creating severe inflation, so we can be grateful for its virtual disappearance. One of the governments providing this public service is that of Venezuela, where the currency has lost so much value that even robbers reject it. A recent carjacking victim told The New York Times his armed captors had no interest in his...