Crude prices give up earlier loss

Prices rise as crude inventories for last week rise less than expected

Wednesday, 13 February, 2008. Prices initially fell after government report showed that crude inventories for last week rose less than expected. But the strong retail numbers for January, 2008 knocked off recession concerns once again and crude glided up.

Crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for March delivery today closed at $93.27/barrel (higher by $0.49/barrel or 0.5%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price earlier rose to an intraday high of $93.9 earlier and fell to a low of $91.9.

As per the weekly inventory report by EIA today, U.S. crude inventories rose for a fifth week, up 1.1 million barrels to 301.1 million barrels in the week ending 8 February. Market was expecting a rise of 2 million barrels. U.S. crude imports averaged 9.7 million barrels per day last week, down 777,000 barrels per day from the previous week. U.S. refineries operated at 85.1% of their operable capacity last week, up from the previous week's 84.3%.

On the petroleum products side, EIA reported gasoline supplies rose by 1.7 million barrels in the latest week, while distillate supplies, which include heating oil and diesel, fell by 100,000 barrels.

Brent crude oil for March settlement today rose $0.46 (0.5%) to $93.32 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The London benchmark rose 54% in FY 2007, the most since 1999 when prices more than doubled.

Crude had ended FY 2007 substantially higher by $35 or 57%. It was crude’s biggest yearly gain in five years.

Natural gas rallies more than 13% this year

In a monthly report released yesterday, EIA said the world oil market is poised to ease over the next two years with production increases offsetting moderate growth in oil demand.

Natural gas price rose today. Natural gas has rallied more than 13% this year and is is 15% higher than a year ago. Natural gas for March delivery rose 5.1 cents (0.6%) to $8.487 per million British thermal units.

Against this backdrop, March reformulated gasoline rose 2.19 cent to $2.3899 a gallon, and March heating oil was almost flat at $2.615 a gallon.

Last Friday, two ministers of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) hinted that the cartel might go for a production cut in its next meeting at March, 2008. This spurted up crude prices and the same ended almost 4% higher on that day. At its 1 February meeting at Vienna, OPEC members decided to keep current output levels unchanged.

At the MCX, crude oil for February delivery closed at Rs 3,709/barrel, higher by Rs 29 (0.8%) against previous day’s close. Natural gas for February delivery closed at Rs 335.9/mmtbu, lower by Rs 1.4/mmtbu (0.41%).