FT.com - November 9 2006

Oil rises as distillate stocks fall - By Kevin Morrison


Crude oil futures rose by more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday after a bigger-than-expected fall in US distillate inventories, which includes diesel and heating oil.

Prices were also helped by comments from Saudi Arabia suggesting the market remained oversupplied with crude in spite of the recent 1.2m barrel-a day cut by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The weekly US crude and petroleum product inventory data showed distillate fuel inventories dropped by 2.7m barrels, but are just above the upper end of the average range for this time of year.

US crude inventories rose 400,000 barrels to 334.7m barrels, which is well above the upper end of the average range for the time of year. The report also said total petrol inventories declined by 600,000 barrels, but remain at the upper end of the five-year average range.

ICE December Brent added $1.01 to $59.49 a barrel in late London afternoon trade. December West Texas Intermediate gained 96 cents to $59.89 a barrel in early afternoon trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

US petroleum products also made large gains with the December Nymex Rbob gasoline contract gaining 4 cents to $1.5740 a gallon, and the December heating oil contract up 3.7 cents to $1.7180 a gallon.

Although the Opec cut only came into effect at the start of the month, US oil imports have already fallen, showing the global market is tightening. US crude oil imports averaged 9.8m barrels a day last week, down 306,000 from the previous week, and below the four-week average of 10m b/d.

can anyone tell me were i can get the price of oil from, the futures link on moneyam is all wrong....

Tonker, see the top of this thread. At the moment it is detailed as : LAST 59.59

Nov. 11 (Bloomberg)

Oil Falls the Most This Month After IEA Cuts Demand Forecast - By Mark Shenk


Crude oil fell the most this month after the International Energy Agency cut its demand forecast for the third consecutive month.

World oil demand this year will average 84.49 million barrels a day, 80,000 barrels a day less than estimated last month, the Paris-based agency said today. Slower growth in Chinese use of transport fuels, especially gasoline, was behind the revision, the IEA said. China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, is still expected to drive growth this year and next.

``The IEA has cut its demand forecast for three months in a row, which could be the start of a trend,'' said Kyle Cooper, director of research at IAF Advisors in Houston. ``This is very different from 2004 and 2005 when we saw demand revised higher repeatedly. This may be evidence that these high prices are putting a lid on demand growth.''

Crude oil for December delivery fell $1.57, or 2.6 percent, to close at $59.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the biggest decline since Oct. 30. Prices are up 0.8 percent this week and are 3.1 percent higher than a year ago. Futures have traded in a range of $56.55 to $61.79 for the past month.

Oil has plunged 24 percent from the record of $78.40 a barrel reached July 14 amid concern that fighting in Lebanon would spread through the Middle East, source of a third of the world's oil. Since then, the Lebanese cease fire, rising supplies and a calm Atlantic hurricane season have caused the price decline.



Demand Growth

World oil demand growth is expected to be 1.1 percent this year, less than the 1.2 percent in last month's report. Growth in 2007 annual demand was left unchanged at 1.7 percent, the IEA estimated. The agency was set up in 1974 to advise industrialized nations on energy policy.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces about 40 percent of the world's oil, will take less supply than it sought, the IEA said. The 11 members of OPEC, meeting on Oct. 20 in Qatar's capital Doha, said they would cut production by 1.2 million barrels a day starting Nov. 1, to check the decline in prices.

OPEC's crude oil production fell 340,000 barrels a day, or 1.1 percent, in October, to 29.37 million barrels a day, the IEA said. Between 600,000 to 900,000 barrels a day might be removed from the market as a result of last month's agreement, according to the agency.

``The problem with today's IEA report is the numbers we really want to see will be released roughly a month from now,'' said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover Inc., a New Canaan, Connecticut, energy consultant. ``We want to know how well they are abiding by the agreement.''

OPEC is next scheduled to meet in Abuja, Nigeria, on Dec. 14.



Warm Weather

Warm weather in the Northeast has reduced demand for heating oil in the region, which is responsible for 80 percent of U.S. consumption of the fuel. Home-heating use there will be 35 percent below normal through Nov. 17, said Weather Derivatives, a forecaster in Belton, Missouri.

``The market is still range bound,'' said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. ``We are being pulled in two directions. The warm weather is bearish and the drop in product stockpiles is very bullish.''

U.S. diesel supplies dropped 2.92 million barrels in the week ended Nov. 3, the Energy Department reported on Nov. 8. Diesel inventories have plunged 12 percent in the past four weeks. Gasoline supplies slipped 584,000 barrels to 204 million last week, the report showed.

Brent crude oil for December settlement fell $1.61, or 2.6 percent, to close at $59.71 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures exchange.

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg)

Crude Oil Trades Near One-Year Low on Doubts About OPEC Cuts -
By Hector Forster and Nesa Subrahmaniyan


Oil, set for its biggest weekly decline since October 2005, traded near a one-year low on speculation OPEC will exceed its production target.

Crude plunged 4.3 percent yesterday after Halifax, England- based consultant Oil Movements said November shipments by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will rise. OPEC last month agreed to cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day, or 4.4 percent.

``OPEC has to get their act together,'' said Anthony Nunan, deputy general manager for international petroleum business at Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Corp., Japan's biggest trading house. ``That's what the market's saying.''

Crude oil for December delivery fell as much as 27 cents, or 0.5 percent, in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, to $55.99 a barrel, taking the decline this week to 6 percent, the largest drop since the week ended Oct. 7 last year.

Yesterday, the futures slumped $2.50 to $56.26, the biggest one-day decline since Aug. 17, 2005. The December contract expires today.



Oil Movements

OPEC's shipments rose 0.9 percent in the month to Dec. 2 to 24.8 million barrels a day from 24.6 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended Nov. 4, Oil Movements said in a weekly report yesterday.

Above-average temperatures will cover the northern third of the U.S. from coast to coast this winter as an El Nino weather pattern persists, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said yesterday in a report that covers December through February. A warmer-than-normal winter in the region would reduce demand for fuels used to run household and commercial furnaces.

``The temperature situation in the U.S. is not helping,'' said Andrew Harrington, a commodities analyst at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Sydney.

El Nino refers to the warming of the ocean surface off the western coast of South America. The phenomenon affects the jet stream, alters storm tracks and creates unusual weather patterns. A moderate to strong El Nino typically brings mild winters to the northern U.S.

FT.com - November 17 2006

Crude falls after natural gas data - By Chris Flood


Oil prices reversed early strength and retreated on Thursday after the release of the latest US weekly natural gas inflows added to record stock levels as winter approaches.

ICE January December Brent fell 77 cents to $59.84 a barrel. Nymex December West Texas Intermediate, due to expire today, dropped $1.08 to $57.68 a barrel, but there was more trading volume in the January WTI contract, down 80 cents to $59.92 a barrel.

Crude has been range trading since the start of October. The decline in crudes price volatility in recent months is in line with equities and bonds but contrasts with increased volatility for some metals and agricultural products.

Rangebound trading has led to the virtual disappearance of speculative long positions in the crude market. But Francisco Blanch, commodity strategist at Merrill Lynch, said the current stability of crude prices might not last long due to a strong outlook for demand growth in emerging markets, an energy investment shortage and weaker production growth from non-Opec countries.

Analysts at Barclays Capital said: The market is ultimately going to face over-tightening and the longer it takes before a more significant move up, the more vicious is likely to be the whiplash when they do start to move.

Nymex December Henry Hub fell 25 cents to $7.867 per million British thermal units after the Energy Information Administration said gas in storage rose 5bn cubic feet last week.

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sorry my posts were related to epic OIL