Mt. Belvieu and Conway propane prices turned back higher on Thursday amid a rally in crude futures. Brent and WTI crude oil futures both shot up 4.2% yesterday after OPEC+ decided to keep its output policy mostly unchanged, save for some increases in allowances for output from Russia and Kazakhstan. Natural gas futures went the other way, falling 2.5% following a bearish weekly EIA storage report. The propane price action was somewhere in the middle, with Mt. Belvieu TET prices up 1.5% (1.44 cents) at 97.88c/g and Conway spots adding 0.7% (62 points) to reach 88.50c/g The north-south spread widened further, to 9.38 cents.
Crude oil futures were rallying further today, with WTI up 3.1% and Brent up 3.5% as of this writing, amid mostly higher trade in equities with encouraging US economic data, even as the US dollar index rallied to levels not seen since November. Propane prices were seeing further gains this morning as well. Mt. Belvieu TET prices were up 1.4% (1.37 cents) at 99.25c/g (non-TET at 97.94c/g) and Conway prices had climbed 2.3% (two cents) higher to 90.50c/g. In the news, OPIS reports that Asian LPG use is set to rise off of a 13-month low next month, with tight naphtha supplies and strong light naphtha premiums this month.
