Fred Yao's List: Oil News from the Bloomberg

• Diesel sales fell in Pakistan after South Asia’s second-biggest economy grew 2 percent in the year ended June 30, the slowest in eight years.

   

  “The company’s sales of diesel declined 26 percent in the quarter because of lower demand,” said Ahsan Amir Ali, an oil analyst at Karachi-based Investfinance Securities Ltd., who has a “buy” recommendation on the stock.

• Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC should agree to maintain oil production targets when it meets next month to decide quotas, Kuwait’s oil minister said.

   

  Oil prices are “not too bad, not too bad at all,” Sheikh Ahmed al-Abdullah al-Sabah told reporters in Kuwait today. OPEC should keep quotas unchanged, he said. Al-Sabah favors an oil price of $70-$80 a barrel.

• Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed last year on record production cuts of 4.2 million barrels a day in an attempt to support oil prices. The group is scheduled to discuss quotas in Vienna on Sept. 9 after leaving output unchanged at its last two meetings.

   

  OPEC raised production in July as compliance with quotas weakened for a fourth consecutive month, the group said in an Aug. 11 report.

   

  Al-Sabah said he’s optimistic that demand will increase by year end.

• Oil surged as much as 5.3 percent yesterday as U.S. and European equities gained following better-than-estimated earnings at Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp. and an increase in German investor confidence. Prices rose further after the American Petroleum Institute reported that crude stockpiles declined by 6.13 million barrels last week.
• Oil surged as much as 5.3 percent yesterday as U.S. and European equities gained following better-than-estimated earnings at Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp. and an increase in German investor confidence.

• The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose to 989.67 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 0.9 percent to 9,217.94. The dollar traded at $1.4132 per euro at 6:02 a.m. in Tokyo, after falling 0.4 percent yesterday.

   

  U.S. crude inventories dropped to 342.4 million barrels and gasoline supplies declined 847,000 barrels to 212.6 million, the API report showed. The Energy Department is scheduled to release its weekly report today at 10:30 a.m. in Washington. That report will probably show inventories rose for a fourth week, according to a survey of analysts.

• Oil-supply totals from the API and DOE moved in the same direction for the past six weeks and 76 percent of the time over the past four years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

   

  API collects stockpile information on a voluntary basis from operators of refineries, bulk terminals and pipelines. The government requires that reports be filed with the Energy Department for its weekly survey.
• Angola’s daily crude oil exports are scheduled to rise to the highest this year, signaling that Africa’s second-biggest producer continues to pump more than its OPEC quota.
• Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Angola, have pledged to comply more closely with record production cuts of 4.2 million barrels a day announced in December in an attempt to support oil prices. The group is scheduled to discuss quotas in Vienna on Sept. 9 after leaving output unchanged at its two meetings this year.

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• 通过购买大量的期货合约，从而将期货价格推向更高的水平，其结果就像投机者提供的一种奖励，刺激企业买入更多的石油，并将之储藏。如果期货价格持续走高，那么炼厂将会买入更多的原油，即使成本高达115美元/桶。其结果则是，过去2年来原油库存稳定增长，高于前8年的任何时候，投机资金大量涌入原油期货市场，结果造成了目前供应充足和高油价并存的局面。

• Oil slipped 1.1 percent as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 2.2 percent and China’s Shanghai Composite Index slumped the most since November. The dollar touched $1.4046 today, the highest level since July 30.

   

  “There are still major problems with the wider economy and investors probably think they got a little ahead of themselves,” said Rick Mueller, a director of oil markets at Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. “The recovery will probably be slow and demand isn’t going to be coming back real fast.”
• Commodities and equities plunged on Aug. 14 after the Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment dropped in August to the lowest level since March. Colonial BancGroup Inc. was closed by regulators and taken over by BB&T Corp. on Aug. 14 in the biggest U.S. bank failure since Washington Mutual Inc. collapsed last year.
• “The Colonial Bank failure and the consumer confidence numbers on Friday show we have a long way to go. People were too optimistic.”
• “Perhaps the recession is over but given that consumer spending is responsible for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, the recovery is in doubt,” Stephen Schork, president of consultant Schork Group Inc. in Villanova, Pennsylvania, said in a report today.
• U.S. crude-oil stockpiles probably climbed for a fourth week because refiners have reduced operating rates. Inventories advanced 1.35 million barrels from 352 million last week, according to the median of eight estimates by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News before an Energy Department report on Aug. 19.
• The U.S. currency climbed 0.8 percent versus the euro to $1.4083, from $1.4203 on Aug. 14.
• “We are looking at the same pattern that’s been in place for a while, weak equities and a strong dollar mean weak commodities,”
• Tropical Storm Claudette came ashore in Florida earlier today without affecting major U.S. oil and gas installations. Claudette weakened to a tropical depression with winds at 30 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center in a report at 11 a.m. Miami time.
• Oil prices were also lower because of declines in natural gas, a competing fuel.
• Crude oil volume in electronic trading on the Nymex was 450,168 contracts as of 2:58 p.m. in New York. Volume totaled 603,800 contracts on Aug. 14, 14 percent higher than the average over the past three months.

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• Stocks fell yesterday as investors speculated the global economy isn’t expanding fast enough to justify the steepest equity market rally in seven decades.
• Stocks fell yesterday as investors speculated the global economy isn’t expanding fast enough to justify the steepest equity market rally in seven decades.
• Stocks fell yesterday as investors speculated the global economy isn’t expanding fast enough to justify the steepest equity market rally in seven decades. The dollar traded higher as investors sought a refuge. U.S. crude stockpiles rose last week, a government report due tomorrow will likely show, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts.
• “If we have another inventory report this week like last week showing builds in crude and petroleum, oil could trade below $65.”
• U.S. crude-oil stockpiles probably climbed for a fourth week because refiners have reduced operating rates, a Bloomberg News survey showed. Inventories advanced 1.35 million barrels last week from 352 million, according to the median of eight estimates by analysts surveyed before an Energy Department report tomorrow.

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• The CHART OF THE DAY shows the relationship between crude oil futures traded in New York and excess output capacity of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries this decade. Prices climbed to a record $147.27 on July 11, 2008, when OPEC members had the ability to bring fewer than 3 million barrels of additional production online.
• In March the 12-member group could have produced 6.84 million barrels a day above its actual production, if needed, the most since 2001, according to a monthly Bloomberg News survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. That margin was 6.11 million barrels last month.
• The excess shows how effective OPEC’s been in managing the market.”
• OPEC agreed at three meetings last year that the members with quotas would cut output by a combined 4.2 million barrels a day to 24.845 million in a bid to bolster prices.
• “The Saudis are happy with oil in the $70-to-$80 range,” Mueller said. “It’s low enough to stop development of some oil sands and alternative energy sources while not hurting the economy. If prices rose above $75 they would open the spigot.”
• Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on May 23 in Rome that crude oil at $75 a barrel would be healthy for the global economy. The aim will be “keeping it between $70 and $80,”

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