Your Weekly Jolt ? Crew Dragon

YOUR WEEKLY JOLT  It’s clearly the right time to head into outer space. Saturday, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. 

Talk about social distance. The two astronauts are now sitting 400 kilometers above Earth, on the International Space Station, where they will remain for 4 months. 

Give us a little time to try and turn things around down here. Now for this week’s Jolt
 
HEATING OIL Prompt-month heating oil futures decreased 1.67% for the week ending Friday, 5/29, as prices fell $0.0164 per gallon.On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude futures for delivery in June closed at $35.51 per barrel on Friday, 5/29, up 5.43% for the day, and up 6.83% for the week.Why So Crude? Crude oil prices rose again last week but edged lower on Monday, trading around $35 a barrel. Trading was mixed to start the week, with investors wary of taking positions ahead of a potential OPEC meeting to discuss extending record production cuts. Crude production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries dropped to its lowest level in two decades after a deal was reached in April to reduce output by 9.7 million barrels a day. The deal is scheduled to expire at the end of June, so OPEC and its allies may look to push their meeting forward from June 9-10th to this week. The Baker Hughes oil rig count showed that the number of active rigs in the U.S. decreased for the ninth straight week, going from 237 to 222.
 
GASOLINE & DIESEL U.S. regular gasoline prices increased by $0.08/gallon from the previous week to average $2.049/gallon.Gasoline prices are down $0.89/gallon from a year ago.U.S. on-highway diesel fuel prices decreased by $0.004/gallon from the previous week to average $2.390/gallon.Diesel prices are down $0.773/gallon from a year ago.Holding Steady. Since Monday, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline has held steady at $1.96, which is $.04 higher than a week ago, $.20 more than a month ago and $.86 less than a year ago. According to new data from the EIA, demand grew from 6.8 million b/d to 7.3 million b/d last week. – AAA 
NATURAL GASPrompt-month natural gas futures decreased $0.009 for the week ending Friday, 5/29, to settle at $1.722/Dth.Overall supply decreased by 0.7 Bcf from the previous week. Total demand decreased by 0.4 Bcf.Natural gas exports in March 2020 were 496,866 million cubic feet, compared with 373,539 million cubic feet in March 2019. This is a 33.02% increase.Net injections into storage totaled 109 Bcf for the week ending 5/22, compared with the five-year average net injections of 93 Bcf and last year’s net injections of 110 Bcf during the same week.Working gas stocks totaled 2,612 Bcf, coming in 423 Bcf higher than the five-year average and 778 Bcf more than the year-ago level.Rally. Natural gas futures closed sharply lower last week. Losses could have been worse if not for a short-covering rally on Friday. The catalysts behind the selling pressure are rising U.S. storage inventories and U.S. export concerns. – FX Empire 
ELECTRICITY Average peak prices in NYC increased last week, rising $3.88 to $19.08 per MWh.Average peak prices in Central NY’s Zone C increased, rising $4.94 to $18.08 per MWh.Average peak prices in New Jersey’s PSE&G increased, rising $1.42 to $15.94 per MWh.Average peak prices in New Jersey’s ACE increased, rising $0.88 to $14.91 per MWh.Average peak prices in Pennsylvania’s PPL increased, rising $2.15 to $16.43 per MWh.Average peak prices in Maryland’s BGE increased, rising $9.37 to $29.16 per MWh.Calendar 2020 prices in NYC increased $0.07 per MWh, and Zone C prices decreased $0.09 per MWh.Calendar 2020 prices in PSE&G increased $0.20 per MWh, and ACE prices were flat.Calendar 2020 prices in PPL increased $0.18 per MWh.It’s Static. Static electricity is sometimes little more than a nuisance that causes clothing to unattractively cling in all the wrong places. But it can be much more detrimental. Learn how to mitigate potential hazards. – OHS 
TECHNOLOGY 
Image: The Verge
The New Kind Of Rocketship. Nearly two hours after NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley became the first astronauts launched to space on a privately-owned rocket, they also became the first to pilot a spaceship using only touchscreen controls. – The Verge