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Oil Rangebound As Market Awaits US, China Data

Crude-oil futures moved in a narrow price range in Asian trading hours Friday as investors look to today’s U.S. non-farm payrolls report and the weekend’s Chinese trade data for cues. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at $102.53 a barrel at 0536 GMT, up $0.05 in the Globex electronic session. July Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.11 to $108.90 a barrel. Brent crude added to overnight gains after the European Central Bank cut interest rates and announcing additional stimulus measures, but any major upside is limited by the region’s depressed oil demand. Later Friday, financial markets will focus on the U.S. non-farm payrolls report for May. Over the weekend, Chinese trade data will provide the level of the country’s oil imports, which are likely to be affected by stockpiling and seasonal maintenance at the large refineries operated […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Tug of War Between Natural-Gas Bulls and Bears Intensifies

U.S. data on the amount of natural-gas in storage usually sets a direction for the market. Lately, though, the tug-of-war between natural-gas bulls and bears has been particularly fraught. In three of the past four weeks, including Thursday, the amount of natural gas added to what’s in storage has come in a bit above analyst consensus. The initial market reaction was predictable: Prices of natural-gas futures immediately fell. But then traders in the market had a rethink, and then started to buy again, taking prices higher. Driving the recovery in prices after the initial drop is the idea that, while gas stockpiles are being replenished at a slightly faster-than-expected pace after being depleted last winter, it isn’t clear that they are increasing fast enough. Bentek Energy in Colorado just said Tuesday it revised down its projection for how much natural gas will be in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural-Gas Prices Dip on Year's Largest Production Surplus

By Timothy Puko NEW YORK–Natural-gas futures dipped briefly Thursday morning after the federal government reported the largest gas surplus of the year, but not the record some traders wanted. Producers added 119 billion cubic feet of gas to storage for the week ended May 30, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That is 2 bcf more than what 21 traders, brokers and analysts forecast in a Wall Street Journal survey. Natural gas for July delivery dropped as much as 5 cents in the minutes after the data release. It climbed back up and recently traded up 0.2 cent, or 0.04%, to $4.642 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Traders use the EIA update to gauge how quickly stockpiles are recovering from high demand that drained them to 11-year lows this winter. The market has been inching up this week in part because stockpiles had […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural-Gas Prices Dip on Year’s Largest Production Surplus

By Timothy Puko NEW YORK–Natural-gas futures dipped briefly Thursday morning after the federal government reported the largest gas surplus of the year, but not the record some traders wanted. Producers added 119 billion cubic feet of gas to storage for the week ended May 30, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That is 2 bcf more than what 21 traders, brokers and analysts forecast in a Wall Street Journal survey. Natural gas for July delivery dropped as much as 5 cents in the minutes after the data release. It climbed back up and recently traded up 0.2 cent, or 0.04%, to $4.642 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Traders use the EIA update to gauge how quickly stockpiles are recovering from high demand that drained them to 11-year lows this winter. The market has been inching up this week in part because stockpiles had […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas at Highest Price in Nearly a Month as Storage Addition Fails to Impress Traders

By Timothy Puko NEW YORK–Natural-gas futures hit their highest closing price since May 7 after the federal government reported the largest gas surplus of the year, but not the record some traders wanted. Natural gas for July delivery settled up 6.1 cents, or 1.3%, to close at $4.701 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the fourth straight day of gains, with prices up 3.5% for the week. Producers added 119 billion cubic feet of gas to storage for the week ended May 30, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That is 2 bcf more than what 21 traders, brokers and analysts forecasted in a survey by The Wall Street Journal, but not enough to impress investors. The EIA reported stockpiles are still 37.4% below the five-year average for this week of the year. With gas utilities needing to buy to refill storage […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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NGSA: US gas prices to feel slight upward pressure this summer

06/05/2014 US natural gas likely will feel modest upward pressure this summer from levels a year earlier when Henry Hub prices averaged $3.77/MMbtu, the Natural Gas Supply Association said in its 2014 Outlook for Summer Gas , released June 4. The upward gas price pressure is from summer to summer and does not include data on winter prices, the industry organization said. Using published data and independent analyses, it evaluated the combined impact of weather, the general economy, customer demand, production activity, and storage inventories on the direction of gas prices for the coming summer, it said. “When NGSA weighed all the different factors, the picture that emerged for this summer is one of slightly increased pressure on gas prices, chiefly because of the need to inject a greater than average amount of gas into storage in the wake of an extreme winter,” NGSA Chairman Gregory M. Vesey said. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iraq dislodges insurgents from city of Samarra with airstrikes

Iraqi helicopters bombed the city of Samarra after insurgents overran parts of it early on Thursday, bringing them within striking distance of a Shi’ite shrine the destruction of which in a 2006 attack unleashed a bitter sectarian war. The offensive is part of an escalating conflict between Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim-led government and Sunni Islamist militants who have been regaining momentum in the past year, particularly in the west of the country bordering Syria. The Iraqi army and SWAT forces had regained control in Samarra, killing dozens of insurgents and forcing the rest to retreat from the city after they moved in overnight, the Samarra Operations Command said. Militants advanced on Samarra in pick-up trucks, raiding checkpoints along the way and blowing up a police station in an attack that killed several policemen, security sources said. After entering the city from the east and west, they […]

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Kurds accuse Baghdad of oil grab

The Iraqi central government in Baghdad aims to control the issue of oil "completely," the prime minister of the semiautonomous Kurdish government said. The United Leadership , a crude oil tanker, is parked off the coast of Morocco with more than 1 million barrels of Kurdish oil taken last month from a Turkish sea port. The Kurdish and central governments are at odds over who controls what in terms of oil. Baghdad said the export is a violation of the national constitution, though the Kurdistan Regional Government contests the allegation. KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani told Kurdish lawmakers who controls Iraq’s oil is the "big question" in the country. "[Our] counterparts in Baghdad did not identify ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ KRG actions," he said in remarks published Thursday. "They just wanted to control the issue completely." The central government in Baghdad filed a case at an international […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Kurd Crude Tanker That U-Turned Leaves Morocco Without Unloading

An oil tanker hauling crude from Iraq ’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region left Morocco ’s territorial waters without unloading, days after the same ship u-turned in the Atlantic Ocean amid a legal challenge relating to its cargo. “The United Leadership moved into international waters yesterday upon a request from Moroccan authorities,” Nadia Laraki, director general for Agence Nationale des Ports, said by phone today. “The issue is out of our hands. It has not docked and therefore has not unloaded a single cubic meter.” SOMO, Iraq’s oil-marketing company, said June 1 that buyers should not purchase the tanker’s cargo. Iraq’s oil ministry said May 23 it sought arbitration over Kurdish oil sales from Turkey at the International Chamber of Commerce . The Kurdistan Regional Government says it’s abiding by the Iraqi constitution, according to its website. Two calls to KRG officials today weren’t answered. The ship reached its destination, the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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German energy company lauds Egyptian success

German energy company RWE Dea said Thursday it’s produced more than 640 million barrels of crude oil during its 30 years of operations in Egypt. The German oil and gas company marked Thursday as the 30th anniversary of work in the Gulf of Suez. It’s been working through the Suez Oil Co., a joint venture established with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. The company said production from the Ras Fanar, Zeit Bay and Ras Budran fields in Egypt have yielded 640 million barrels of oil since operations began in 1984. "For 30 years now, we have consistently leveraged new ideas to develop intelligent solutions, using the latest technology, and investing in our infrastructure," Maximilian Fellner, general manager of RWE Dea Egypt, said in a statement . "That’s how we have been able to maintain a high level of oil production from these three fields over an extended period of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple