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Oil rallies on U.S. jobs data, bullish EIA monthly report

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil futures rallied on Tuesday, erasing losses on strong jobs data, U.S. government forecasts for lower domestic crude production growth and higher global demand for oil. U.S. job openings surged to a 14-year high in February the Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) said. "That JOLTS report was certainly quite strong and strong employment equals strong gasoline demand," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York. Also supportive was an Energy Information Administration (EIA) monthly report raising forecasts for U.S. and global demand growth and lowering forecasts for crude oil production growth in the United States. U.S. May crude rose $1.84 to settle at $53.98 a barrel after dropping to $51.17. The $54.13 peak was the highest since reaching $54.15 on Feb. 17. Brent May crude rose 98 cents to settle at $59.10, having swung from $57.02 to […]

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World domination: Brent trumps Nymex in war of crude oil benchmarks

Investor positions in Brent crude oil futures have risen to a historic high and outnumbered contracts in U.S. futures by the most ever as more traders held the North Sea benchmark as a truer reflection of global market conditions. Brent’s open interest on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), or the number of outstanding contracts held by market players, increased to 1.99 million lots as of the end of March. That compared with 1.72 million lots for crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex). For a long time, Nymex’s West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures had been the leading benchmark, given the United States’ position as the world’s biggest consumer, importer and trader of crude oil. That changed this decade with the shale boom, which turned the U.S. into one of the world’s top producers and reduced its need to import. At the same time, a U.S. ban on exporting […]

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U.S. Oil Prices Rise to 2015 High

Dow Jones Newswires By Nicole Friedman The benchmark U.S. oil price jumped to a 2015 high on Tuesday on fresh signs that the nation’s production is on the brink of a decline. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Tuesday that U.S. crude-oil output, which hit a 42-year high in March, would peak in April and May before falling from June to September. The forecast comes a day after analysts at Goldman Sachs predicted peak production would come this month. These estimates reinforce the view that the boom in U.S. oil output, which helped drive a 50% plunge in oil prices in 2014, will ease this year. That could potentially set the stage for a period of relative price stability, investors and analysts say. Crude oil for May delivery rose 3.5% to $53.98 a barrel, the highest level since Dec. 30, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures have soared […]

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Natural Gas Prices Rise on Late-April Cold

Dow Jones Newswires By Timothy Puko Natural gas prices rose slightly Tuesday as traders focused on a small shot of cold forecast for late April, analysts said. Futures for May delivery rose 3 cents, or 1.1%, at $2.68 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Trading stayed within a 7-cent range and prices remained within about 10 cents of their lowest point since 2012. While weather forecasts were largely stable, traders ended up focusing more on a late-April forecast showing some colder-than-normal weather, said Aaron Calder, senior market analyst at energy-consulting firm Gelber & Associates in Houston. All three major weather models are showing that a high-pressure ridge from Alaska could push cool weather east, where there are populous cities with a high concentration of buildings relying on natural gas for heat, according to Commodity Weather Group LLC. "There’s not a lot of sources of […]

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U.S. oil output is falling! Or maybe not: market’s data quandary

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The immediate outlook for U.S. oil production has rarely been more important for the financial world, with traders scrutinizing every scrap of data for signs of a sustained pull-back in output. It has also rarely been harder to predict. Until late last year, a handful of energy analytics firms had honed the art of real-time oil production forecasts to a near science, running reams of information through complex models that account for everything from a well’s production curve to weather patterns. With the price slump, however, these firms are struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of change. “Things were much more straightforward at $100,” says Bentek Energy analysis manager Anthony Starkey, whose Colorado-based firm publishes end-of-month production data, one of several closely monitored private reports. Last week’s U.S. government data showing a marginal drop in weekly output was a case in point. Some […]

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Oil prices could be $5-$15 a barrel lower in 2016 if Iran sanctions lifted

Oil prices could be $5-$15 a barrel lower in 2016 if Iran sanctions lifted thumbnail World oil prices could be $5 to $15 a barrel lower than forecast next year if oil-related sanctions against Iran are lifted, the U.S. government’s energy agency said on Tuesday. In its monthly report, the Energy Information Administration said U.S. oil production growth was slowing even more quickly than it expected a month ago, while demand was higher than earlier forecast. But the agency left its price forecasts unchanged, putting Brent at $59 this year and $75 a barrel next year – with downside risks from Iran’s return. “A lifting of sanctions against Iran should a comprehensive nuclear agreement be concluded could significantly change the forecast for oil supply, demand, and prices,” EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski said in a statement. The agency said that Iran is believed to hold at least 30 million barrels […]

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After Beating ISIS in Tikrit, Iraq and U.S. Seek Fighters for Next Front

Photo Iraqi forces patrolling a street in Tikrit last week. Credit Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Emboldened as they mop up the last Islamic State forces in the city of Tikrit, Iraqi military leaders are already vowing to follow up that operation with a much more ambitious one: marching into the vast Sunni heartland in western Iraq to root out some of the most significant militant strongholds. Iraqi and American officials say some progress in that region, Anbar Province, will be necessary before a serious effort is mounted to retake the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But just how that can be accomplished is a source of concern. Despite boasts by the Shiite militias that they were ready for Anbar, some Iraqi and American officials say it would be disastrous for a mostly Shiite-led force to begin assaulting towns […]

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EIA: Global oil inventories continue to build

HOUSTON, Apr. 7 Global oil production continues to exceed demand, resulting in inventory builds, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). Global oil inventory builds are projected to average 1.7 million b/d through this year’s first half. Global oil inventory builds typically moderate during the second half of the year, as demand rises and non-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries supply growth slows, particularly in the US, because of lower oil prices. Global consumption increased by 900,000 b/d in 2014, averaging 92 million b/d for the year. EIA expects global consumption will rise by 1 million b/d in 2015 and by 1.1 million b/d in 2016. EIA estimates that non-OPEC production jumped by 2.2 million b/d in 2014. EIA expects non-OPEC production to rise by 700,000 b/d in 2015 and 400,000 b/d in 2016, 300,000 b/d and 200,000 b/d lower, respectively, than in last […]

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The world’s largest oil companies are about to start devouring each other

It was only a matter of time. The Wall Street Journal reports that international oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is in talks to buy BG Group , a giant shipper of natural gas with extensive holdings in Brazil’s oil fields. It may be the opening shot of a consolidation war that many have been expecting . The reason, of course, is the collapse of global oil prices over the last year. Still, most expected that if a merger mania were to break out in the energy industry, it would be primarily focused on smaller cash hungry companies that have seen their valuations slashed by the collapse of crude oil prices. A deal between BG, which has a market value of roughly £31 billion ($46 billion), and Royal Dutch Shell, whose value hovers around $193.4 billion, would be a merger of a different order. It would leapfrog Chevron as the second-largest publicly […]

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Jordan cleared for Israeli gas deliveries

Israeli government gives support to 2014 agreement to ship offshore natural gas to Jordan. Photo by James Jones Jr./Shutterstock TEL AVIV, Israel, April 7 (UPI) — A 2014 agreement to ship natural gas from the Tamar field off the coast of Israel to Jordan was backed by the Israeli government, an operator said Tuesday. Jordanian companies Arab Potash and Jordan Bromine secured a total gross quantity of 66 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the Tamar field, located off the Israeli coast, last year. "It should be noted that this agreement includes a number of other prerequisites, which are mainly other regulatory approvals by relevant bodies in Israel and Jordan," the company added. Jordan in the past has struggled to find a reliable source of natural gas in part because of downstream problems in Egypt. The partners managing Tamar estimate the field holds as much as 10 trillion […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple