Crude registers strong gains

Prices rise by almost $5 on inventory data

Crude prices registered sharp rise in prices today, Wednesday, 30 July, 2008. Prices rose after Energy Department’s weekly inventory report showed that last week registered first drop in gasoline inventories in almost five weeks and also showed a second weekly decline in the crude inventories.

Crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for September delivery closed at $126.77/barrel (higher by 4.54/barrel or 3.6%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude prices had registered drop in the past two days and yesterday it fell by almost $3. Last week, prices coughed up $6.5 (4.8%). It's now 14% lower than the $147.27 record high hit last on Thursday, 10 July, 2008.

EIA reported today that crude supplies fell by 100,000 barrels to 295.2 million barrels for the week ended 25 July. U.S. refinery activity was at 87.2% of capacity last week. That's up slightly from 87.1% the previous week.

EIA also reported that as for the oil products, motor gasoline supplies dropped by 3.5 million barrels to 213.6 million last week following a total climb of more than 8 million barrels between the weeks ended 27 June and 18 July. Distillate inventories, which include heating oil, were up 2.4 million at 130.5 million.

The increase in gasoline supplies came even as demand for motor gasoline stood at an average of about 9.4 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, down 2.4% from the same time a year ago.

At the currency markets on Wednesday, the dollar rose earlier in the day in foreign-exchange trading after data based on a sampling of ADP payrolls indicated that July's private-sector employment rose by 9,000. Including some 20,000 government workers typically hired in a given month, the ADP index suggests U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by about 30,000. But the dollar index which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other currencies, pulled back a bit as oil prices gained more ground. The index was settled at 73.29, compared with 73.285 in the previous day.

Crude prices gained 38% in the second quarter of this year. It was the biggest quarterly increase in nine years. It ended June 2008 higher by 9.9%. Prices are 62% higher than a year ago. For the year, crude is up by 32% till date.

Against this background, September reformulated gasoline rose by 12.7 cents to close at $3.1399 a gallon while September heating oil added 4.7 cents to end at $3.5458 a gallon.

Natural-gas futures finished higher ahead of tomorrow’s update on natural-gas supplies from the EIA. September natural-gas futures rose 11.8 cents to close at $9.248 per million British thermal units.

At the MCX, crude oil for August delivery closed at Rs 5,347/barrel, higher by Rs 168 (3.2%) against previous day’s close. Natural gas for August delivery closed at Rs 392.5/mmbtu, higher by Rs 1.1/mmbtu (0.3%).

Energy Department will natural gas inventory data tomorrow covering the week ended 25 July.