AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report for Friday, 5/04/18

Brent crude traded near $70 a barrel as the specter of expanding U.S. supply was weighed against Wall Street banks’ growing faith in a price rally. The benchmark grade is…

Futures lost as much as 0.9 percent in New York after falling 1.6 percent the previous two sessions. U.S. crude inventories rose by 1.82 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report, even as it noted a large decline at the storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. While all OPEC members support extending output curbs until the end of 2018, Russia hasn’t yet committed to the proposal, said people familiar with the matter. Oil has eased this week from the highest level in more than two years on uncertainty about the outcome of Thursday’s meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. While the global glut relative to the five-year average has more than halved since January, the surplus still stands at 140 million barrels, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said Monday. Click Read More below for additional information.

Tronox Limited announced that, in connection with its planned acquisition of the titanium dioxide (TiO2) business of Cristal, a privately held global chemical and mining company headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the waiting period in the United States under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act expired at 11:59 p.m. EST on December 1, 2017 without further action by or communication from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Jeffry Quinn, Tronox's chief executive officer, stated: "Based on consultation with counsel, we believe that expiration of the waiting period means that we can proceed toward completion of the transaction once all closing conditions are met. However, we have not been informed that the Federal Trade Commission has formally concluded its investigation. The Commission could conceivably seek to enjoin the transaction at a later time, but we believe such action would be unprecedented and contrary to the rationale of the pre-merger notification system that is the framework of the U.S. regulatory process."