Posted on 08/11/2008 8:42:49 AM PDT by BenLurkin
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil traded near $115 on Monday, off early highs as concerns about global demand outweighed supply disruption in the Caspian region. U.S. light crude for September delivery was up 18 cents at $115.38 a barrel by 10:20 a.m. EDT, off highs of $116.90. London Brent crude rose 38 cents to $113.71.
Oil fell by more than $5 on Friday, when it largely ignored the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Georgia in the Caucasus region, a key transit route for oil and gas from the Caspian, to focus on concerns about global economic growth.
Oil has shed about $31, or 21 percent, from its peak of over $147.27 struck on July 11 on concerns of a slowdown in demand.
Analysts said oil's gain was also tempered by the rising U.S. dollar, which vaulted to a six-month high against a basket of currencies on Monday.
SUPPLY DOWN
Georgia's oil ports of Supsa and Batumi, used to export Azeri crude oil, are operating only partially, while the Georgian port of Poti is not operating, a shipping agent said on Monday.
Kazakhstan also stopped shipments of its crude from Georgia's Batumi port. Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan also use crude pipelines for export.
A major oil pipeline exporting Azeri crude passes through Georgia but was disabled last week on Turkish territory before the conflict erupted.
A fire in eastern Turkey on the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline halted loadings of Azeri Light crude shipped to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
The blaze was extinguished on Monday and repairs may take one to two weeks or longer, a source at the pipeline consortium said.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
"All it seems to have done is halted the speed of the fall."
Just a few minutes ago oil was down $.41 so far on the day.
Actually at this hour oil is down $1.25 to below 114 a barrel. Seems Al-Reuters is engaged in some wishful thinking.
Supsa and Poti are bad enough but Batumi is WAY too close to Turkey. If the Russians go for Batumi it is a compleatly different story. Thtey need to get busy over at Incirlik.
Yep, oil returns to it’s losing ways......
http://www2.barchart.com/mktcom.asp?code=BSTK§ion=energies
Fox News is reporting that Russia may have been planning this move for months. A few months ago they had sent Russian troops into one section of Georgia on a supposed humanitarian mission. The project focused on repairing the rail system, and it is now being looked at that the Russians improved the rail system in order to more easily move their weapons systems into the area.
They are falling. Continuing the slide they started when President Bush lifted the Executive ban on off shore drilling July 14th. The slide that started excellerating when the GOP House started it "Don't Go" revolt over the Energy bill on August 1st.
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/energyprices.html
This interuption in oil flow lie is getting as old as the subprime loan lies!!
Yep I fell into that oil is gonna rise also, i went and filled my tank last night, $459.80 cents worth. 92 gallons of that stuff they now sell to the public and call diesel!
It’s becoming more and more difficult to prop up the sagging bubble....
The markets are acting like this is no big deal..wierd.
In a way I’m glad but it seems the markets are resigned to the West throwing Georgia under the bus— and that is kind of a shame.
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