Barron’s Senior Energy Writer Laura Sanicola and OPIS Chief Oil Analyst Denton Cinquegrana discuss what’s ahead for oil this week.

Watch this week’s episode for insights into the recent rebound in oil prices, the potential impact of new tariffs on the energy market, and what’s ahead for refiners as we move into the second quarter.

Transcript:

LAURA SANICOLA: Hi, everyone. This is Laura Sanicola, author of Barron’s Energy Insider, and I’m here today with Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at OPIS. Denton, thanks for being with me today.

DENTON CINQUEGRANA: Hi, Laura. Good to see you again.

SANICOLA: So oil just wrapped up its third straight week of a rebound after falling earlier in the Trump administration. What’s going on? Why are we up? Help me put this in context.

CINQUEGRANA: Yeah, it’s not like we’re skyrocketing higher over these last last three weeks. It is a bit of a slow grind higher with WTI right around 70 dollars a barrel, Brent, 73, 74-ish.

So, again, it’s a slow grind higher. It’s a bit of a recovery from the early March levels that were some of the lowest since mid-September of 2024, coincided with some of the lows of 2024. So I think it’s just more of a recovery, kind of a repositioning, if you will, in oil markets. But there’s, you know, very little I mean, you have plenty of plenty of factors, both bullish and bearish, that could kind of create this tug of war, and I think that’s why we’re seeing more of the slow grind higher.

SANICOLA: So, of course, this week, we have what, president Trump is calling, Liberation Day, April second, expected a swath of tariffs on a wide range of industries. What does that mean for oil?

CINQUEGRANA: Yeah. So, again, our largest, exporter of crude oil to the United States, as we’ve discussed in the past, is Canada. We import quite a bit of heavy Canadian crude oil that fits and plays well with US refineries. The ones that would be significantly impacted are those in the Midwest and Great Lakes, then the Rockies, and then to a lesser extent, the West Coast and Gulf Coast.

If these tariffs go on and they last a long time, you have run the risk of Midwest refiners and Great Lakes refiners reducing runs that limits the gasoline pool, the diesel pool, the jet fuel pool. They might have to rely on bringing more product up from the Gulf Coast, which, again, Gulf Coast is critically situated in a great position where they have connectivity to the US East Coast, into the Midwest into the Great Lakes and, obviously, the export being on the coast as well.

So, that could happen. We’ll wait to see what happens. I think, you know, immediately, it’s not gonna you know, tariffs go into effect April second. It’s not gonna happen immediately. It’s gonna take some time to run through the system.

SANICOLA: And speaking of the refiners, we’re just wrapping up the first quarter of the year. How’d they do, and how’s it looking for them in the second quarter?

CINQUEGRANA: Yeah. It was it was another rough quarter for the refiners. I think towards the back end of the first quarter, started to turn up a little bit on the refining margins. Hopefully, the second quarter, you know, kinda bodes well for them. Usually, the second quarter can be pretty good, particularly on gasoline as we move into the summer driving season and the lower RVP, the summer grade gasoline that they have to produce that costs a little bit more. So, hopefully, for refiners, things start to turn around in the second quarter. But the first quarter was, you know, again, one to forget.

SANICOLA: Right. Okay. Well, thank you for joining me, and we’ll see everybody next week.