Increased Gas Demand Pushes Oil Prices Higher

Over the past three plus weeks, oil price have been steadily climbing higher. In Monday’s action, West Texas Crude was trading over $35 per barrel, a ten dollar week over week increase. Why the move higher, when we continue to fight coronavirus and now deal with protests and civil unrest nationwide?

Patrick DeHaan with Gasbuddy.com said gasoline demand has increased pushing up oil prices. DeHaan noted in looks like demand in China has improved, but how much is hard to tell.

“It appears that China is close to normal, at least, now, we don’t have the best metrics on China, so it’s impossible to know how accurate some of the assessments that come from the Chinese government are, but there, they have had increased testing of coronavirus. Barring some flight differences in China, things have returned far closer to normal there than they have here in the United States.”

While gas demand has increased, pushing gasoline prices higher, DeHaan notes diesel demand is flat or even lower, trimming diesel prices. Here are some of the lowest diesel prices we could find across the Inland Northwest: