Oil tumbles more than 9%, breaks below $100 as recession fears mount
Source: CNBC
Oil prices tumbled Tuesday with the U.S. benchmark falling below $100 as recession fears grow, sparking fears that an economic slowdown will cut demand for petroleum products. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, slid 9%, or $9.83, to trade at $98.60 per barrel. The contract last traded under $100 on May 11.
International benchmark Brent crude shed 9.9%, or $11.46, to trade at $102.04 per barrel Tuesday. Ritterbusch and Associates attributed the move to “tightness in global oil balances increasingly being countered by strong likelihood of recession that has begun to curtail oil demand.”
″[T]he oil market appears to be homing in on some recent weakening in apparent demand for gasoline and diesel,” the firm wrote in a note to clients. Both contracts posted losses in June, snapping six straight months of gains as recession fears cause Wall Street to reconsider the demand outlook.
Citi said Tuesday that Brent could fall to $65 by the end of this year should the economy tip into a recession. “In a recession scenario with rising unemployment, household and corporate bankruptcies, commodities would chase a falling cost curve as costs deflate and margins turn negative to drive supply curtailments,” the firm wrote in a note to clients.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/05/oil-tumbles-more-than-8percent-breaks-below-100-as-recession-fears-mount.html
Back to "The Narrative®" but let's hope the trend to normalize oil prices out of gouging territory, continues.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Of course here in the city, we have an extra 2% sales tax on top of the state's 6%, so that's 8% if I buy in the city (which is why I usually head right across the county line 
).
in that that the very first thing that I saw after landing at LAX and was on my way to my hotel, was that all along the highways were of oil pumps. 
It was no different from when I landed in Houston and was on the road to Galveston.
I'm like WTF???? 
(didn't see that up north coming into SFO though)
I just didn't know... because they are rarely if ever "shown" on TV or in films that take place in California. I suppose the problem is a lack of refineries there.
and (at least up until the past year) had the highest state gasoline tax in the country since 2017, going from the then-highest at 50 cents/gal in 2016 to the current 58 cents gal until recently when CA & IL finally surpassed us. Still, with the federal tax, the past 5 years, it has been just over 76 cents/gal.
And in Jersey, which until a couple years ago, was way cheaper, they seemed to actually price the bridge tolls so that you wouldn't save any money going across the bridge to buy gas there (unless you regularly commuted to Jersey to work, so it made since to buy it there anyway).
One difference is that we also had the largest cluster of oil refineries on the east coast at one time, so that could reduce some costs but much of that has dwindled down, with the last big one (PES) shutting down after a large explosion and fire back in 2019, and that was the end of that. There are still a few smaller ones down in South Philly but it's not like the past. You get off the plane at PHL and head over any of the nearby bridges and/or drive along I-291, you had to roll up your windows!
They are repurposing the site into a business park type thing.
will end up costing them and everyone in the end if a recession hits and people stop buying gas. Idiots. 
That's why I call it "The Narrative®". Low unemployment, factory orders up, oil prices finally dropping, baby formula situation being taken care of (including a new planeload coming into Philly today), and that = "bad".
(i.e., it's "bad" for those driving "The Narrative®", who keep getting thrown off their "game" ).
Just this afternoon I heard another interesting news item (which I'm about to post about in LBN) - For the first time in 20 years, the Euro has dropped in value below the dollar. The dollar has rarely been at parity or had more value than the Euro. Yet here we are!
BAD NEWS!!1!!!11!11!! 
and then dared Wawa to do it.
Link to tweet
@JohnFetterman
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Your move, Wawa.
WPXI
@WPXI
MAJOR GAS DISCOUNT: Sheetz will be looking to lower some pain at the pump by lowering their gas prices. >> http://wpxi.tv/3NkTPlH
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3:39 PM · Jun 27, 2022
There are no Sheetz here in the Philly area (I think the closest is like 50 miles away).
but last night and early this morning, I heard some exasperated reporting sprinkled with mea culpas about people still "buying" and "traveling" despite the higher cost.
I think what is being missed is that as much as was reported the past couple years about people's "staycations" and with the multiple stimulus payments that were issued, you actually had people making good use of their money by paying off their credit cards as best they could, buying much needed household goods when available (and even stocking pantries), and actually "saving" (and that was even considered "bad" while it was happening ). So you have people with a "reserve" able to absorb some of those higher prices - at least for the short term - and the trick is to now get the price gouging and price-fixing out of the equation before Americans snap their wallets shut.
I even saw a post on DU about Krugman's latest analysis. He's basically saying that you have this self-fulfilling prophesy thing going on with the pounding and pounding about "inflation". Granted, the Fed's years of providing "liquidity" and near 0 interest rates did provide an environment for a not so good flip side to that. But with wages finally going up so that employers can even get employees, that is pulling some of the excess "profits" out of the cash-hoarding businesses, and the benefit is that this can actually produce what supposedly drives much of the GDP - consumer spending. The supply chain issue - at least from China - is always a variable given their "zero COVID" policy and they had recently lifted retrictions last week before re-implementing more just yesterday.
In any case, something's gotta give.
