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Russia Seeks to Dip Deeper Into Wealth Fund to Cover Deficit

(Bloomberg) — Russia’s Finance Ministry is seeking permission to use more money from one of the country’s two sovereign wealth funds as a deteriorating economy and last year’s drop in oil prices dry up budget revenue. The ministry in Moscow wants to use 3.1 trillion rubles ($50 billion) to 3.6 trillion rubles of the 5.9 trillion-ruble Reserve Fund, First Deputy Finance Minister Tatiana Nesterenko said in a statement on Friday. The government was previously able to use 500 billion rubles to cover the budget gap. The deficit may be 3.7 percent of economic output this year, the widest since 2010, she said. Russia is on the brink of recession as the price of oil, which together with natural gas accounts for about half of state revenue, fell to the lowest since 2009. The effect was compounded by sanctions the U.S. and its allies imposed after President Vladimir Putin annexed […]

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Oil Rebounds Ahead U.S. Rig-Count, China Factory Data

By Eric Yep Crude-oil futures rose in Asian trade Friday ahead U.S. rig-count data due later in the trading day, and Chinese official manufacturing numbers expected over the weekend. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded at $49.10 a barrel at 0508 GMT, up $0.93 in the Globex electronic session. April Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.99 to $61.04 a barrel. Oil bounced back after dropping sharply in the last trading session with Brent crude better supported than Nymex West Texas Intermediate, but prices are likely to remain volatile in the near-term. The premium of Brent crude to Nymex WTI crude remains wide at almost $12 a barrel, its widest in more than a year. This week’s U.S. rig-count data will be released by oil-field-services firm Baker Hughes Inc. later Friday. "It is pretty obvious that a fall […]

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Oil Storage Sinks as Price Bobs

ENLARGE An oil tanker berths at a storage terminal on Jurong Island in Singapore on March 1, 2012. Photo: Bloomberg News SINGAPORE—Fewer oil tankers are being used to store crude than traders and shipbrokers had expected at the start of the year, as a recent run-up in oil prices upended a popular trading strategy. “There were around 25 to 30 large tankers taken last month, but only around 10 of these are being used for oil storage now,” a Singapore-based shipbroker said, citing industry data. Many market watchers had expected big commodity-trading firms to capitalize on the price gap between different oil-futures contracts by buying physical barrels, storing them on ships and locking in profits by selling futures contracts for delivery further out in the future. When the price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, sank below $50 a barrel in mid-January, its price for delivery in January 2016 […]

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NYMEX April crude futures drop $3 to $47.99/b

New York (Platts)–26Feb2015/401 pm EST/2101 GMT NYMEX April crude closed lower Thursday as growing US crude stockpiles highlighted the oil market’s surplus, dragging the front-month contract further below ICE Brent. In the last 30 minutes before the market’s close, NYMEX April crude dropped $3 to $47.99/b, before settling $2.82 lower at $48.17/b. In refined product action, NYMEX March ULSD closed 3.22 cents higher at $2.1358/gal. NYMEX March RBOB ended down 1.11 cents at $1.7076/gal. Front-month NYMEX crude came under selling pressure Thursday in the aftermath of Wednesday’s US crude inventory report, which showed stockpiles rising 8.4 million barrels last week, analysts said. Stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma — delivery point for the NYMEX futures contract — increased 2.4 million barrels last week. "The huge oversupply in the US, especially in the Gulf Coast and Cushing, is depressing WTI values," Energy Aspects oil analyst Dominick Haywood said. The front-month ICE Brent-WTI […]

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NYMEX April gas settles 16.5 cents lower at $2.697/MMBtu

Houston (Platts)–26Feb2015/317 pm EST/2017 GMT NYMEX April natural gas futures settled 16.5 cents lower at $2.697/MMBtu Thursday on a bearish gas storage report from the US Energy Information Administration. The EIA Thursday reported a withdrawal of 219 Bcf, less than the market consensus of 239-243 Bcf in a Platts survey of analysts. "It was a bullish number, it’s just that expectations were for something significantly higher," Tradition Energy analyst Gene McGillian said. "It means the market is going to have to contend with production numbers running 6 Bcf/day above last year." EIA, in the corresponding week last year, reported a 117-Bcf withdrawal. The five-year average for the corresponding week was a 131-Bcf pull. "The announcement failed to meet expectations of 241 Bcf, and our modeling indicated that it was the most oversupplied weekly storage report since September," Aaron Calder, an analyst with Gelber & Associates, said. "This number implies […]

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Oil’s Big Swings Are the New Normal

ENLARGE A few years ago, Goldman Sachs analysts talked of a ‘Groundhog Day’ loop for oil. The market is far more volatile now. Photo: Bloomberg News Volatility is roiling the oil market, luring traders in search of quick profits but discouraging longer-term investors who had grown accustomed to more muted swings. Crude prices tumbled Thursday to their lowest levels in nearly a month after data released Wednesday showed inventories continuing to swell. Volatility has surged in recent months following a bruising selloff that cut global benchmark prices by 60% from June through January. That was followed by a jump of more than 30% in the first two weeks of this month. It is a sharp turnaround for a market that was relatively dull until a year ago, with Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, trading at more than $100 a barrel on average for three years in a row, […]

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KRG tanker unloads in Israel after abandoning US delivery

The view from the deck of the United Kalavryta, in this undated photo on the website of owner Marine Management Services M.C. The oil tanker at the center of a lawsuit over Kurdistan’s autonomous exports appears to have unloaded at the port of Ashkelon, having abandoned its quest to deliver crude to the U.S.The United Kalavryta, carrying more than 1 million barrels of oil produced and exported by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), sailed away from Texas in late January.It arrived at the Israeli port of Asheklon, where several other KRG-chartered tankers have unloaded their cargoes, and was last seen by …

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Nigeria: Missing u.S.$20 Billion – Okonjo-Iweala Gets One Week Ultimatum to Submit Forensic Audit

Miffed by the uncounted $20 billion, the House of Representatives has Wednesday issued a one week ultimatum to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the economy Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to submit the report of the forensic audit. The mandate followed a resolution, passed last week by the House at plenary which directed its Committee on Public Accounts, otherwise called PAC, to investigate the matter. Chairman of the committee, Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan (APC, Lagos) while briefing Journalists on the matter stated that the report "must include the Initial Draft Report, the Executive Summary and Management/Internal Control Letters." Olamilekan noted that the "condensed version" of the report released to the public through a press conference addressed by the Auditor-General of the Federation with the highlight that Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) should remit a minimum of $1.48 billion to the Federation Account had rather prompted the demand for complete […]

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EU Foreign-Policy Chief Sees Progress on Iran Nuclear Talks

ENLARGE European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, seen at a meeting of EU defense ministers in Riga, Latvia, on Feb. 18, on Thursday said a nuclear deal with Iran is close. Photo: Reuters BRUSSELS—Nuclear talks between Iran and six major powers are getting close to agreement after more than a decade of diplomacy, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Senior U.S. officials on Monday said there was progress during weekend discussions as Iran and the six powers—the U.S., France, Germany, the U.K., Russia and China—seek to agree on the framework of a final agreement by the end of March. The deadline for the full, detailed agreement is June 30. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said this week that the six powers should know soon whether a deal was attainable. However, officials have warned that significant […]

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IEA Sees Oil Market Rebalancing in Months as Demand Rises

(Bloomberg) — The oil market will rebalance in the next several months as a price collapse boosts consumption and curbs supplies, the International Energy Agency said, a day after Saudi Arabia’s oil minister told reporters demand is rising. An oil price as low as $45 a barrel is unsustainable, Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the Paris-based adviser to 29 nations, said at a conference in London Thursday. Investment cuts in the U.S., Russia and Brazil will curtail output growth, bringing supply and demand back in line, he said. “As a result of lower prices, there will be downward pressure on production,” Birol said, adding that the market will rebalance in the coming months or quarters. “As a result of lower prices, there will upward pressure on demand.” Oil slumped by almost half in 2014 as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries maintained output amid the fastest U.S. production […]

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