Canadian dollar sinks below 88 cents as Saudis cut oil to $77

[Superflyer]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

IT Contractors;

Is anyone seeing an uptick in U.S. clients for projects? My company is seeing a bit of interest from south of the border due to the amazing dollar value they can take advantage of right now. I'm hoping this continues as a way to mitigate the freeze on projects in Canada, specifically in the O&G industry.

Had a good laugh at this one. I read it and thought that you posted this in the wrong thread, this has nothing to do with gas prices. Then I thought Oh wait, this thread is about the CDN dollar, not just gas prices.

On this topic, that is an interesting thought, we are the new outsourcing country, take that India!

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Slava

I know it sounds like that's what everyone is doing here, and it seems silly. Fact is though that while on the news they were saying wholesale costs went up by $0.02/litre gas prices went up by as much as $0.08/litre yesterday. That $0.06/litre is basically arbitrary, and not based on supply/demand or anything else aside from the retailers wanting increased profits.

So? Thule marks most of their stuff up about 400%.

Yakima marks there's up something slightly less than that.

As long as they aren't colluding, businesses can charge what the market will bear.

If there was sooooooo much margin in gasoline, a mom & pop gas station would charge 5 cents a Litre less and cash in on the increase in sales volume.

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by polak

FasGas is owned by the company I work for. Esso is the one selling. Word around the office is that it's too many stations for one company to buy.

I just started in this job and industry this month so I'm just going off heresay.

The article really paints a much clearer (and truer) picture....

Roughly two-thirds of Imperial’s 1,700 Esso stations across Canada have been operating under what it calls a “branded wholesaler” model for about 15 years. The Calgary-based company said Wednesday that it’s looking into whether it makes sense to do the same with the remainder.

Essentially its a franchise, which already 2/3's of their stores operate as. Nothing really shocking (or anything that the government would need to intervene with).

[Bigtime]

Well here's an upside, lots more TV and movie productions looking at or coming up to Canada to film again. Good timing with Calgary finally building the studio for them too.

[Red]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

So? Thule marks most of their stuff up about 400%.

Yakima marks there's up something slightly less than that.

As long as they aren't colluding, businesses can charge what the market will bear.

If there was sooooooo much margin in gasoline, a mom & pop gas station would charge 5 cents a Litre less and cash in on the increase in sales volume.

Gas is a commodity used by just about everyone and has a major influence on all merchandise in stores. It wouldn't be long before governments would regulate it. In fact they do in most countries around the world.

Thule and Yakima (who????) don't quite compare. Such marginal players so they can mark up their stuff all they want and it won't have any effect.

[Kavvy]

Surprised this hasn't been brought back up, WTI has nearly broken through the old low we hit in January.

US stockpiles are 65% full and US production is at a all time high. Interesting that Brent is also falling, I wonder if that is due to speculation that the US may reverse their energy policy with regards to exporting oil.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...-straight-week

[1stLand]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Well here's an upside, lots more TV and movie productions looking at or coming up to Canada to film again. Good timing with Calgary finally building the studio for them too.

Excellent. Need more Disney kids shows & Movies to be filmed here.

"The Dog who Saved the Calgary Stampede"

"The Dog who Saved Hannukah"

The Dog who Saved dropping Oil Prices"

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by 1stLand

Excellent. Need more Disney kids shows & Movies to be filmed here.

"The Dog who Saved the Calgary Stampede"

"The Dog who Saved Hannukah"

The Dog who Saved dropping Oil Prices"

"Dunston and Air Bud: Basketball Hijinx on Mars"

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Kavvy

Surprised this hasn't been brought back up, WTI has nearly broken through the old low we hit in January.

US stockpiles are 65% full and US production is at a all time high. Interesting that Brent is also falling, I wonder if that is due to speculation that the US may reverse their energy policy with regards to exporting oil.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...-straight-week

Yeah, the oilpatch is pretty much ****ed for a while.

Probably a couple years at least.

[Righteous1]

Where can I get a good exchange rate CDN to USD?

[GP_Matt]

If you are converting a large amount and have a self directed brokerage account you can buy shares in a company that trades on both the TSX and NYSE then swap the shares and sell the USD ones.
For smaller amounts it seems like you always pay the same crappy rate no matter what you do. Something like Bitcoin or a crowd sourced exchange might work out cheaper if someone else has any experience with those methods.

[BigNumbers]

I use an FX account with VBCE.com. Best rates I've found, outside of the "Norbert's gambit" which is what GP_Matt described above, and can be detailed here:

http://www.moneygeek.ca/weblog/2013/...ing-questrade/

[Harry Lime]

Somewhere earlier in the thread the question was asked about gas prices being above 90cents while oil is at 44per. The basic answer that was here, and on the radio, was that scheduled refinery maintenance was causing a planned for spike in pricing at the pump. Ok.

Does anyone know how long the refinery maintenance is supposed to last? It seems like it has been a while.

[Ducay]

You'd have to figure out the refinery and then google the operator/owner to see if they've press released it or disclosed it.

Generally if its a large part of their operations or makes up a decent chunk, they will announce it welllllll ahead of time so analysts are aware and build it into quarterly expectations. Large players (supermajors, large intergrated guys like Suncor), you might not see it pre-announced, but depends on the timing and results to date.

Length of time will vary. Turnaround or scheduled maintenance might run you anywhere from 10 days to 2 months, depends on whats being done.

[burn_this_city]

The maintenance of refineries in the states is staggered over 3-4 months, usually January through April. That way they are all back online in time for peak demand in the summer.

[Harry Lime]

When the price of oil initially fell all the way down to 44$, the lowest price at the pump that I saw was hovering around the 70cent mark. I'm just trying to remember if we see a sustained 25% increase every year at this time because of the scheduled maintenance, and I just never noticed before.

Is it naive to expect a correction in April then? The benefits of a low value in oil are few and far between. Here is an article stating that the Irving and Suncor refineries are going down for maintenance for 3 months, in October.

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2014/10/3/Why...il-prices.aspx

A recent article about the pricing of gas at Canadian pumps, including an arbitrary raise, and closed refineries to raise the price artificially. (Considering how much it costs to build one of these things, it blows my mind that they would close one rather than sell it. Come on MPs, here's a flashy election issue for you to play with) The East-West pipeline is looking mighty sweet right now.

http://driving.ca/auto-news/news/mot...d-at-the-pumps

And if anyone is interested, a table on gas prices.

http://www.torontogasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx

[chemgear]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...orage-runs-out





The next few months are critical. Every year, refineries schedule repairs for Spring—after demand for heating oil drops off and before summer driving season picks up. About a quarter of refineries shut down operations at this time. That puts an extra stress on inventories, because without refineries to process it, oil has no place to go.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyzed 10 years of maintenance-season data and found that if 2015 follows an average year of refinery maintenance, the current glut should never be more than a nuisance. But if 2015 matches up with the worst period in a decade, there will be trouble in the two biggest storage regions: Cushing, Oklahoma, and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Saudi Arabia getting involved in conflict in Yemen with Iranian supported rebels sends oil up to 51.50 overnight.

Dan Tsubouchi:

As of 9:45 pm mountain time Wed, WTI is trading up $1.85/b. The story is Yemen. Here are some quick items for background

1. The houthi rebels push in south to Aden. Below is the map posted by Bloomberg on Wed evening.

2. Reports on Wed evening (Thurs morning Middle East time) that Saudi Arabia was bombing Houthi positions in Yemen.

3. Markets are responding to two major items. (a) Houthi are described as Iran backed. Below is a map from the Globe & Mail on the shia/sunni regional splits that was in my March 22, 2015 Energy Tidbits memo http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature...ddle-east/349/ (b) Yemen, in particular SW Yemen’s strategic location for the Bab el-Mandab, which is one of the major oil transit lands in the world moving 3.8 million b/d of oil in 2013. Below is the table from the EIA world oil transit chokepoints report and the map on the Bab el Mandab, the EIA report is attached.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Righteous1

Where can I get a good exchange rate CDN to USD?

How much are we talking about? If you need $1000 in cash to go to Vegas or something, Calforex has the best retail rates. If you're transferring large dollars, you should open an account at interactive brokers and do a trade on the forex market. The average spread is 1.2 pips, which is a difference between $1.0000 and $1.00012. So on a $100,000 conversion, you'd lose about $10 USD in fees.

[nik-]

Saudi deficit is more than double what they forecast. They predicted $39 billion ... it's actually $106 billion.

http://www.france24.com/en/20150408-...t-says-report/

They're entering the debt market instead of using their reserves.