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WTI Oil Trades Near Two-Week High as U.S. Crude Stockpiles Drop

West Texas Intermediate traded near the highest price in two weeks after government data showed crude inventories fell to the lowest level since March 2012 in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer. Futures were little changed in New York after advancing 1.7 percent yesterday, the most in six weeks. Crude stockpiles slid by 7.66 million barrels to 350.2 million in the seven days ended Jan. 10, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s a seventh week of declines and is more than five times a 1.3 million drop forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. “It’s a big surprise on the inventory number,” said Michael McCarthy , a chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney who predicts investors may sell WTI contracts at about $97.10 a barrel. “It was a big draw. We have a clear short-term uptrend in place now.” WTI for February delivery was at $94.07 a […]

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U.S. Imports of Crude Fall Below 7 Million Barrels a Day

U.S. crude-oil imports dropped below 7 million barrels a day for the second time in 14 years as domestic output grew, the Energy Information Administration said. Shipments dropped 1.07 million barrels a day to 6.89 million in the week ended Jan. 10, the EIA, the Energy Department’s statistical arm, said today in a weekly report. They reached 6.86 million on Dec. 6, the lowest level since Jan. 28, 2000. Imports averaged 9.35 million in the past 10 years. Domestic production increased to the most in more than 25 years as fracking and horizontal drilling boosted output from shale formations, including Bakken in North Dakota and Eagle Ford in Texas . West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, traded $14 cheaper than the European benchmark Brent on Jan. 10. The gap has been above $10 since Nov. 7. “We have increasing supplies of domestic crude,” said Tom Finlon, Jupiter, Florida-based […]

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Natural Gas Futures Snap Three-Day Winning Streak

Natural gas futures finished lower Wednesday, as traders paused following a sharp rally that had sent prices up nearly 10% over the previous three sessions. Analysts say many market participants likely booked profits from the run-up ahead of a government storage report likely to show a record storage withdrawal of 299 billion cubic feet last week. Natural gas for February delivery fell 4.4 cents, or 1%, to $4.325 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had risen as much as 1.4% earlier in the day, before turning lower for good late in the afternoon. "I think natural gas got near last week’s […]

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Analysts call for US EIA to estimate 300-304 Bcf gas storage withdrawal

A consensus of analysts expects the US Energy Information Administration on Thursday will estimate a record withdrawal from natural gas storage of between 300 Bcf and 304 Bcf for the reporting week that ended Friday. A draw from stocks within consensus expectations would easily surpass the largest pull on record of 285 Bcf in the week that ended December 13, 2013. It would be substantially larger than a 156-Bcf withdrawal in the same week a year ago and the five-year-average drawdown of 159 Bcf, according to EIA data. Article continues below… Request a free trial of: Gas Daily Gas Daily Gas Daily offers the most detailed coverage of natural gas prices at interstate and intrastate pipeline and pooling points in major U.S. markets. Gas Daily keeps you informed about complex state and federal regulations that affect competition in the gas industry. You will also […]

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Russia says Iran essential for finding Syria peace

Russia says Iran will "inevitably" take part in any resolution of the civil war in Syria, and that Moscow is not working on a separate track with Damascus and Tehran to resolve the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Tehran should be part of attempts to end the war that has so far killed over 100,000 people. He spoke after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Lavrov is scheduled to meet with Syrian foreign minister in Moscow on Friday. Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group continues to demand the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad as a precondition for ending the conflict. Russia has insisted on the participation of Iran in upcoming talks in Switzerland, and the two countries have been strong backers of the Assad regime. © 2014 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten […]

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Iran wants to be at Syria talks but rejects conditions

Iran wants to take part in next week’s international peace conference on Syria but will not attend if conditions are set for its participation, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday. The United States says Iranian delegates should be at the conference in Montreux, Switzerland, only if they are willing to accept an agreement reached at a June 2012 peace conference in Geneva calling for a transitional government body to be established in Damascus "by mutual consent". Washington interprets that language as requiring President Bashar al-Assad’s departure from power but Russia and Iran reject this interpretation. "If the Islamic Republic of Iran is invited like all other participants in the conference, it will take part in this event," Zarif told a news conference after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He added: "We do not accept any pre-conditions for our country’s participation." Lavrov urged […]

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Genel Energy says Kurdish oil exports imminent

Genel Energy, led by former BP boss Tony Hayward , said Wednesday it expects oil from a pipeline in the Kurdish north of Iraq to be exported from Turkey soon. Genel said commissioning of independent pipeline infrastructure in the Kurdish north of Iraq is ongoing and “exports [are] expected to commence in the near future.” The Kurdistan Regional Government has already sent oil to a storage facility at the Turkish port of Ceyhan and Genel said deliveries should ramp up throughout 2014. Hayward said an energy agreement between the KRG and Turkey, coupled with the completion of the pipeline’s infrastructure, should lead to a rise in oil exports from his company’s Taq Taq and Tawke oil field in the Kurdish north. Genel said Taq Taq produced an average 77,000 barrels of oil per day and Tawke produced an average 39,000 barrels per day last […]

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Iraq: Maliki threatens Kurds if they export oil to Turkey

As if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki didn’t have enough problems battling city-grabbing al-Qaida insurgents in western Iraq, his simmering faceoff with independence-minded Kurds in the north over their drive to export oil to neighboring Turkey looks like it’s about to boil over as well. The Kurdistan Regional Government, which runs the land-locked, semiautonomous Kurdish enclave that borders Turkey, says it started pumping crude from its oil fields directly to Turkey through a newly constructed pipeline to the export terminal at Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast in early January. That openly defied Baghdad, which has branded the operation bypassing the state oil export network as illegal. The only other export outlet for the Kurds is to the south through the Persian Gulf, but Baghdad controls the export terminals there. Maliki insists the central government has sole authority over Iraq’s massive energy resources, and declared the […]

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Egypt voters overwhelmingly back constitution: official sources

Egyptians who voted in a referendum overwhelmingly approved a new constitution, official sources said, citing early results of a ballot that could set the stage for army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to declare his candidacy for president. About 90 percent of voters approved the constitution, the state news agency and a government official said. It comes as no surprise: the constitution won wide support among Egyptians who backed the army overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi in July, and there was little or no trace of a no campaign as the state presses a campaign on dissent. Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, which is sure to dispute the official numbers, had called for a boycott of the two-day vote, seeing it as part of a coup against a leader freely elected 18 months ago. It had called for anti-government protests. After nine people were killed in clashes between […]

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Exxon to Chevron Face Two-Year Wait in Mexico Oil Opening

Oil companies from Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) to Chevron Corp. (CVX) will have to wait another two years before investing an estimated $20 billion in Mexico’s recently opened oil and gas industry. Foreign crude producers will be allowed to bid on fields for exploration and begin developing infrastructure and operations as soon as late next year, Deputy Energy Minister Enrique Ochoa said in an interview at the ministry in Mexico City. Prior to granting the operating licenses, the legal framework has to be determined and state oil producer Petroleos Mexicanos must select the fields it plans to continue to develop, he said. “We estimate that by the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016, we could be in the stage of implementation,” Ochoa said. “We must be professional and careful with the necessary institutional development prior to the following rounds.” President Enrique Pena Nieto ended the 75-year production monopoly […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple