Priming the pump: Citing an improving economy, the Federal Reserve signaled today that it’s on track to raise historically low interest rates as early as September, but that rates are likely to climb more gradually than it previously anticipated. In a statement after a two-day meeting, Fed policymakers didn’t explicitly state when they plan to boost the central bank’s benchmark rate for the first time since 2006. Although Fed officials have said they expect to act this year, the statement reiterated that the precise timing will depend on the economy’s performance in coming months. But Fed policymakers continue to expect the federal funds rate to rise from 0.125% to 0.625% by the end of the year, in line with their median estimate in March. Economists have said there almost certainly would have to be two rate hikes to reach that level, with the first likely coming in September. USA Today has the full story.
All the roadrunning: Oil supplies are abundant. America’s refiners are running the hardest in 10 years. So why isn’t the country awash in gasoline? As Bloomberg reports, it’s all going up in smoke. Back in January, the Energy Information Administration forecast Americans would burn 8.71 million barrels of gasoline a day in the first quarter. They actually used 100,000 more than that to drive a record 720.1 billion miles. That’s about 3,900 return trips to the sun. The thirst for fuel in the U.S. and abroad has been greater than analysts—including the EIA and Energy Aspects Ltd.—estimated. It has pushed pump prices beyond forecasts and extended the good times for America’s refiners who, thanks to the shale-drilling boom, are gorging on a type of crude easily refined into gasoline. Read the full story.
The end is the beginning: The Louisiana attorney running BP’s oil spill settlement program says the 10 offices where Gulf Coast residents have been filing damage claims will close on Friday after a three-year run. The deadline to file spill claims under the 2012 settlement was Monday. The 10 Claimant Assistant Centers were still open to take questions from claimants who say they saw financial losses in the wake of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. “The program is now entering a different phase,” settlement claims administrator Patrick Juneau says in a written statement. “We are now putting our resources into the review of claims.” As FuelFix.com reports, BP so far has paid out $5.3 billion in claims to more than 66,000 individual claimants. But there are hundreds of thousands of claims still waiting to be processed, according to Juneau. BP says in its first-quarter financial statement the settlement could run up to $10.3 billion. The London oil major is also waiting for a federal judge to rule on how much it owes in environmental fines. The company could be fined up to $13.7 billion.
