Free Republic

Oil prices steadied amid relief that key oil facilities in the southern United States had mostly escaped severe damage from Hurricane Rita over the weekend, dealers said. Rita swirled through the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, creating less havoc than expected, which led to an initial fall in oil prices and a positive reaction on global stock markets today. The US dollar also firmed against major rivals. US President George W. Bush, meanwhile, sought to reassure Americans alarmed by sky-high gasoline prices that he was taking steps to limit the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on prices at...

Crude-oil futures rebounded above $66 a barrel Monday amid worries that a storm gaining strength off the Bahamas could hit U.S. oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico later this week. The rise came as OPEC ministers met to discuss how to relieve price pressures in the oil market. Benchmark light, sweet crude for October delivery rose $3.50, or more than 5 percent, to $66.50 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, still more than $4 off its all-time high of $70.85 reached briefly on Aug. 30 after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf. Nymex crude had...

Crude oil prices turned lower Wednesday, after a top U.S. energy official said the government would release oil from its reserves. Prices had earlier climbed back above $70 per barrel on concern about the extensive damage Hurricane Katrina caused to oil platforms and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. The announcement reflected how seriously the U.S. administration viewed the situation -- the reserve is meant to cushion the nation against national emergencies. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the government would release an unspecified amount of oil from its strategic petroleum reserves, a move designed to give refineries in the...

Oil prices rose slightly Wednesday after the release of a U.S. supply report that showed shrinking gasoline stocks and rising inventories of crude oil and distillate fuel. Traders were also watching an approaching storm that could enter the Gulf of Mexico later this week. Crude oil for October delivery rose 34 cents to $66.05 a barrel in morning trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The front-month contract is nearly 50 percent higher than a year ago and hit an all-time high of $67.10 on Aug. 12. In its weekly petroleum supply report, the Energy Department said domestic inventories of...

Oil prices settled at a record high near $67 today, as U.S. refinery outages looked set to test gasoline supplies in the world's biggest-consuming nation. The threat of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and concerns over Iran's decision to resume uranium-conversion activities also fueled the price increase, analysts said. But some traders said purely speculative buying was a big factor behind the $10 per barrel surge in just over three weeks. "This is a bubble that will have to burst at some point," said Mike Fitzpatrick, an oil broker at Fimat USA in New York. A large increase in...

Oil prices surged higher Wednesday, touching a new high of $65 a barrel, after the U.S. government released data that showed domestic oil supplies growing but gasoline inventories shrinking. The latest rally — crude futures have risen 13 percent in three weeks — highlights just how nervous the market has become to just about any threat to output, even though analysts say the country has adequate levels of fuel in inventory to offset routine supply disruptions. “The market was used to having 4 to 5 million barrels in spare capacity some 10 years ago and people would still like to...

Google's share price is now well into dot.com valuations at more than 80 times earnings _ and this for a company that most of the world could probably live without. So how much would you pay for the last barrel of oil? Commodities in the 21st century. The benchmark index for tracking commodity prices is the RJ CRB, the Reuters-Jefferies Commodity Research Bureau Index. In its latest revision as of last month, it now contains 19 core commodities that best reflect the world as it is today. Its components can be broadly divided into energy, metals and agricultural. Significantly, the...

With little news to restrain oil markets, crude prices began the week by hitting a record $64 a barrel yesterday, pushed higher by concerns over Middle East supplies and refinery shutdowns in the United States. The latest incident was a fire on Saturday that shut a refinery in Philadelphia that produced 200,000 barrels a day. There was no word from its operator, Sunoco, on when the refinery would restart. "OPEC? They are irrelevant,"

Crude oil prices have settled at a new high above $US62 a barrel, rallying on concerns about refinery snags and following the release of a positive US jobs report. The rally strengthened late in the session, as fresh news headlines and market rumours about trouble at several US refineries added to worries about refiners' ability to meet summer fuel demand. Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose 93 cents to close at $US62.31 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "We continue to see a bunch of headlines on outages and failed restarts at refineries," a trader in the...

Crude oil prices rose Friday on concerns gasoline supply in the United States may fail to meet peak demand during the summer driving season. Midmorning in Singapore, light, sweet crude for September delivery gained 25 cents to US$61.63 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange which saw the contract reach an intraday high of US$61.88. Gasoline gained slightly to reach US$1.8905 a gallon (3.8 liters) while heating oil rose a tad to US$1.708. September Brent futures at London's International Petroleum Exchange opened 38 cents up from Thursday's settlement at US$60.50 a barrel, but slipped to...

Oil prices climbed above $61 a barrel to a three-week high on Monday as the death of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, a spate of U.S. refinery outages and tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions rattled the market. U.S. light, sweet crude rose $1.03 to $61.60 a barrel. The price has climbed 40 percent this year and is approaching the record high of $62.10 hit on July 7. "It's this combination that serves as a reminder of the market's vulnerability," said a senior energy analyst. King Fahd died on Monday and will be succeeded by Crown Prince Abdullah, his half-brother who has...

The daily or weekly fluctuations in the price of a barrel of crude oil on the New York market are due to a multitude of factors of very different origin and bearing. Commentators usually cite OPEC output, the state of American commercial stocks, the weather, speculators, terrorism, weakness in refinery capacity, the situation in Iraq, in Iran, in Nigeria, in Venezuela, in Russia ... But these "explanations" appear valid whatever the level of the barrel price - 30 dollars, 40 dollars, 50 dollars... - while we lack the principal explanation for the level itself, today 60 dollars. Three decisive factors...

Oil prices were slightly higher in morning trade as a deadly Indian offshore oil platform fire stoked supply worries in a tight market. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, was at USD59.34 a barrel, up 23 cents from its close of USD59.11 in the US on Wednesday. "Demand is still tight so any loss of production, no matter where it is, has an impact on the market," Kurt Barrow, a senior principal at US energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz in Singapore said. A fire tore through an Indian offshore oil platform Wednesday, killing at least...

Oil prices steadied just below $59 a barrel on Monday as dealers anticipated that recent storms in the Gulf of Mexico's oil producing region would cut into robust U.S. commercial stockpiles. U.S. crude traded up 20 cents to $58.85 a barrel, after falling as low as $57.65 earlier in the day, while London Brent crude rose 11 cents to $57.69 a barrel.

The price of crude ticked upward Friday, fueled by Thursday's terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and refinery problems in the United States triggering supply concerns. Gasoline futures rallied nearly four cents in New York on Thursday as supply worries grew amid a rash of refinery glitches and rising prices of MTBE, an additive used in cleaner-burning summer gasoline sold in some U.S. states. Benchmark light, sweet crude for June delivery was up 38 cents to US$54.58 in afternoon trading in Europe on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil prices fell slightly to $1.5330 per gallon, while unleaded gas gained...

Oil prices marched toward $55 a barrel on Wednesday, within sight of all-time highs, as late wintry blasts in the United States reignited demand and a tumbling dollar drew more speculators into energy markets. Key U.S. government fuel stocks data due at 1530 GMT could provide the momentum to nudge prices to new highs, traders said. U.S. light crude for prompt-month April delivery (CLc1: Quote, Profile, Research) traded up 21 cents to $54.80, less than a dollar below record prices of $55.67 hit in October last year. May and June delivery crude touched contract highs above that level on Tuesday....

Crude oil prices climbed to near $55 a barrel Thursday as concerns about global demand growth and supply tightness underpinned bullish market psychology, though some traders said they were stunned by how rapidly crude futures have advanced. Cold weather, the weak dollar and jitters about an upcoming OPEC (search) meeting have contributed to the recent rise in prices. However, many brokers say speculative buying by large institutional investors — as opposed to commercial trading by petroleum producers and refiners — is magnifying the move higher.

The Pentagon on Monday criticized a published report that said it was mounting reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify potential nuclear and other targets. "The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars," the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, said in a statement. Hersh's article, published on Sunday, was "so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," DiRita said. Hersh reported that President Bush had...

Crude futures rose for the fourth day in a row Friday, bringing oil prices to a level not seen since late November as traders pinned a near 7 percent rise in the past week on supply snags and expectations of colder weather. Light sweet crude for February delivery was up 26 cents at $48.30 a barrel in early afternoon trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Last Friday, oil futures settled at $45.43 per barrel. Other factors contributing to higher prices were the strong dollar, the possibility of another OPEC production cut and fears of more attacks against oil infrastructure...

Oil prices jumped higher Thursday morning, briefly rising above $48 a barrel, as traders' nerves were tested by a combination of short-term production snags in the North Sea, expectations of colder U.S. weather and concerns about OPEC's next move and the upcoming election in Iraq. After reaching as high as $48.25 per barrel, light, sweet crude for February delivery traded $1.56 above Wednesday's closing price at $47.93 per barrel in midday dealings on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil futures have climbed nearly 14 percent since the start of the month. Referring to the recent uptrend, Andrew Lebow, a senior...