W
hat a difference a year makes. That was
the observation that Tom Tubman, exec-
utive director of the American Energy
Coalition, expounded on at the Opening
Session of the Atlantic Region Energy
Expo in Atlantic City.
Tubman was referring to the shrinking of the price
gap between fuel oil and natural gas—and celebrating its
causes.
"I don't think many, if any, were predicting last year
the free fall in crude oil prices seen since last June [2014],
or that the narrowing in the spread between the two fuels
would come from the price of heating oil coming down,
as opposed to the price of natural gas going up," Tubman
said, "but it has."
The good news is that crude oil prices, and so gasoline,
diesel fuel, jet fuel and heating oil prices are all down sig-
nificantly from a year ago, Tubman said, and for the same
reason that natural gas prices have been down now for
the last several years: oversupply. "We have had a glut of
natural gas, and now we have a glut of crude oil," Tubman
said. "So crude oil prices are coming down too."
Alan H. Levine, CEO of Powerhouse, and Tubman's
co-presenter at the Opening Session, said the U.S. energy
industry is "the gift that keeps on giving." The U.S. is pro-
ducing nine million barrels of crude oil daily, Levine said,
28 JULY 2015 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com
BUSINESS OPERATIONS
The 2015 Atlantic
Region Energy Expo
Fuel oil marketers attending AREE heard some good news from a variety of sources
BY STEPHEN BENNETT
Tubman noted that natural gas providers had
run into a number of challenges in serving
their customers, and he offered examples.
