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Oil Drops as U.S. Supplies Pile Up

Crude-oil futures dropped in Asian trading hours Wednesday in anticipation of a further increase in U.S. oil stockpiles even as markets kept a close eye on the Ukraine crisis. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in June traded at $100.48 a barrel at 0510 GMT, down $0.80 in the Globex electronic session. June Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $0.26 to $108.72 a barrel. Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, said its data showed U.S. crude-oil stocks rose by three million barrels in the week ended April 25. The closely watched oil data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration is due later Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect an increase in oil stockpiles of 2.2 million barrels. Although the weekly increase from both measures should be below the 6.7 million barrel jump in weekly inventories […]

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WTI Heads for Second Monthly Drop on Stockpile Gain; Brent Falls

West Texas Intermediate headed for a second monthly drop amid speculation that crude inventories at an 83-year high expanded further in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer. Brent slid in London . Futures lost as much as 1 percent in New York, declining for the first time in three days. Crude stockpiles probably increased by 2.2 million barrels to 399.9 million last week, according to a Bloomberg News survey before government data today. Supplies rose by 3 million, an industry report showed yesterday. Brent is poised for a rebound in April as sanctions on Russia were strengthened over the Ukraine crisis and gunmen opened fire at Libya’s parliament. “Anticipation of further inventory growth” is driving West Texas prices, Ric Spooner, a chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone. “The possibility of supply disruptions arising from geopolitical uncertainty is up against the reality of sluggish demand […]

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US crude stocks up 3 million barrels last week, Cushing inventories rise: API

US crude stocks climbed 3 million barrels to 391.7 million barrels in the week that ended April 25, as inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose, data Tuesday from the American Petroleum Institute showed. Analysts polled by Platts Monday were expecting a smaller, 2.1 million-barrel build in crude stocks, with some anticipating a 1 million-barrel draw at Cushing. Cushing stocks, however, rose 202,000 barrels to 26.241 million barrels in the week that ended April 25, but were down substantially from 49.7 million barrels in the year-ago period. Article continues below… Crude oil moving out of Cushing: trends and implications Featuring Alison Ciaccio and John Kingston A combination of new crude pipeline projects, along with the expanding reach of crude-by-rail movements, is starting to move crude oil out of Cushing. Alison Ciaccio and John Kingston discuss the trend. Watch the video . In […]

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Natural-Gas Futures Extend Gains on Demand Expectations

Natural-gas prices jumped for a second day Tuesday as weather forecasts called for temperatures that could prompt demand for gas to heat homes in some parts of the U.S. and produce electricity for air conditioning in others. Gas for June delivery rose 3.2 cents, or 0.8%, to $4.831 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest closing price since Feb. 26. The rally followed Monday’s 3.2% gain that was driven by strong commercial buying in the cash market as the May contract expired. Weather forecasts called for soaring temperatures in the West and across the South in the 10-day outlook beginning in May, with the thermometer topping 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Southern California and Texas. Utilities in those areas are expected to need more natural gas to cool homes. At the same time, lingering late season cool temperatures in the Midwest and Northeast were […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Just keeping up

HERE is a striking fact from James Hamilton: U.S. production of oil from tight formations is up 3.5 mb/d since 2005, and yet total global field production of crude from all sources is only up 2.3 mb/d. In other words, more than all of the increase worldwide over the last 8 years is attributable to U.S. tight oil production. Without U.S. tight oil, world oil production would be lower today than it was 8 years ago. Petrol prices have been ticking up in recent weeks, mostly for seasonal reasons. But the broader picture, Mr Hamilton points out, is one of surprising stability in prices. For most of the last three years oil has hovered around $100 a barrel, and the price of petrol has been correspondingly flat. But there is another way of looking at this stability; prices have remained relatively high in order to temper demand growth and […]

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U.S. Announces Actions to Enforce Iran Sanctions

The United States government escalated enforcement of its Iran sanctions on Tuesday, adding eight Chinese companies, a Dubai company and two Dubai-based executives to blacklists for evading American restrictions on Iranian weapons, oil and banking transactions. In coordinated announcements of the actions by the Treasury, State and Justice Departments, the government also offered a $5 million bounty for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Li Fangwei, a Chinese businessman also known as Karl Lee, a previous sanctions target, who is accused of abetting Iranian weapons procurement. The announcements said that he owned the eight Chinese companies and that he had been charged in a previously sealed indictment with several federal offenses, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, bank fraud and wire fraud. The announcements signaled the first significant enforcement of American sanctions directed at Iran in about three months, and seemed aimed at dispelling what Obama administration […]

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Kurdish oil exports set for May

The semiautonomous Kurdish government of Iraq is expected to start selling exported oil within the next few weeks, Turkey’s energy minister said Tuesday. A pipeline from the Kurdish north is sending oil to storage tanks in Ceyhan, a Turkish sea port. Exports of Kurdish oil, however, have been on hold because of the lingering stalemate between the Kurdish and central governments over who controls what in the Iraqi energy sector. "This oil belongs to Iraq [and] they may begin its export in May," he said . Oil from northern Iraq has been flowing north at around 100,000 barrels per day since the start of the week, he said. He gave no indication of the export destination, noting it was up to private sellers to determine who gets Kurdish oil deliveries. "[Turkey’s oil refiner] Tupras has its own contracts as a private company," he said. "I always say, they can […]

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Violence Kills 24 People in Iraq

Back-to-back bombs ripped through an outdoor market northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, the deadliest in separate attacks that officials said killed 24 people on the eve of the first nationwide elections since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. forces. The attacks are an apparent effort by the militants to discourage Iraqi voters from going to the polls on Wednesday in the first nationwide balloting since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. forces. Tuesday’s attack took place in the town of Sadiyah, 140 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of Baghdad, a police officer said. One of the bombs was placed in the middle of the town’s main vegetable and meat market, he said, while the second was put near one of the exits — presumably trying to strike people fleeing from the first blast, a tactic widely used by insurgents in order to inflict as many casualties as possible. Officials said […]

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Unrest in Iraq Narrows Odds for Maliki Win

When a well-known journalist was shot dead at a checkpoint here last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki rushed to the scene. Speaking to a television camera, he promised “blood for blood.” In a city where hundreds die every month from explosions and gunshots, it was unusual for the prime minister to focus on a single murder. That scene, though, coming as it did just before elections, was a vivid demonstration of what diplomats and analysts say is Mr. Maliki’s best and last hope for securing a third term as prime minister: playing the strongman, a role Iraqis, for better or worse, are accustomed to seeing in their leaders. “Maliki is a man of power,” said Salah al-Robaei, 46, a university professor in Baghdad, who also called him “wise,” “tough” and a “great leader.” A strategy of showing toughness may win votes among Mr. Maliki’s Shiite constituency, […]

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Syria’s jihadist groups fight for control of eastern oilfields

A new and bloody front has been opened in eastern Syria as the country’s two most powerful jihadist groups battle for control of the region’s oilfields. The struggle for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars a day in much-needed funding highlights how controlling resources has become crucial to fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) and Jabhat Al-Nusra. “The battles here aren’t over God or [President] Bashar al-Assad . They’re about oil,” said an activist in eastern Deir Ezzor province who asked not to be named. “Donors can turn the money pipeline on or off. But when you control an oil well, the pipeline never gets shutdown.” Since early 2014, infighting between Nusra, which is afiliated to al-Qaeda, and Isis, an al-Qaeda splinter group, has killed thousands in opposition-held regions of northern and eastern Syria. Clashes have intensified in eastern provinces in recent months […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple