Posted on 08/02/2006 7:43:19 PM PDT by thackney
TOKYO, Aug 3 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil futures rose 14 cents to $75.95 a barrel in electronic trading on Thursday, adding to a 3.5 percent gain over the previous three days on fears Tropical Storm Chris could threaten oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.
* Frontmonth U.S. crude for September delivery rose after settling up 90 cents or 1.2 percent on Wednesday. It touched $76.50, its highest level since July 18, supported by a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. crude oil supplies.
ICE September Brent crude traded up 29 cents at $77.18. On Wednesday, it settled up $1.00, or 1.3 percent, at $76.89, after hitting a high of $77.47.
* NYMEX gasoline led oil complex gains on Wednesday, rising 2.7 percent as a heightening storm risk offset a less-than-expected drawdown in gasoline inventories.
* Tropical Storm Chris weakened but still threatened to become the first hurricane of 2006, putting at risk U.S. oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. The Bahamas issued a hurricane watch for the Turks and Caicos islands and for the southeastern Bahamas.
The storm's path, although subject to considerable uncertainty, could take it into the Gulf early on Monday and potentially again threaten New Orleans.
* The U.S. Energy Information Administration said crude oil stocks fell by 1.8 million barrels to 333.7 million barrels in the week to July 28, more than the average forecast of a 700,000-barrel draw in a Reuters survey of analysts.
Gasoline inventories dipped 100,000 barrels to 210.9 million barrels, putting stocks 2.4 million barrels above a year earlier. Analysts expected a decline of 1.6 million barrels.
* The ConocoPhillips 146,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Borger, Texas, suffered a process upset on Tuesday, according to a state regulatory filing.
The upset occurred in Area B of the refinery and resulted in emissions of an estimated 76,000 pounds of carbon monoxide, the Wednesday filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said.
Yet more documentation that trading/speculating - not supply and demand - is and has been driving oil prices.
Prove it.
and while your at it, Baruch, define "speculation." Then tell me who does it. Then prove that.
thank you for that reality check. However, I'm guessing that you lost anyone who would make an assertion like the one that accompanies the article after the first 5 syllables.
some people are content to repeat what they hear. It's the MSM's best customer.
The limits of traditional thinking First, we'll have a look at the demand side. According to the Energy Information Administration (a bureau of the Department of Energy), the daily global consumption of crude oil has climbed by 22% in the past 16 years; however, the price of crude has increased nearly eightfold. Gasoline demand in the same period is up about 44%, while the traded futures price of gasoline has increased sixfold. Clearly, the amount by which the price has risen seems to exceed the degree by which demand has grown.
The author is confusing consumption with demand. Prices do not move linearly with consumption or production.
Come to the exchange some time. I'll show you around. I'll even buy you lunch and tell you speculators are an essential ingredient in the supply chain. And how even the trade "speculates." And how you do to, though you don't even know it.
For the purposes of analysis would any data on the movement of the futures market in prior years under similar circumstances be of any value?
There is nothing that occurs anywhere in an AP story which the traders can't use as an excuse to claim that oil will be disrupted and drive prices higher. Exxon should be sending hookers and campagne over to all of the oil trading firms.
What prior years would be similar (need to be very similar) circumstances on everything that effects the price of oil?
LOL
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