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• 12/13/2010 -- OPEC retains current production
  As was generally expected, oil ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries made no official production changes during their brief Dec. 11 session in Quito, Ecuador.
• 01/25/2010 -- OPEC capacity caps prices
  The International Energy Agency in Paris estimated in December the sustainable production capacity for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at 35.4 million b/d, with actual output at 29.05 million b/d, leaving a spare capacity of 6.35 million b/d.
• 01/05/2010 -- A 'virtual' oil price gain
  The front-month contract for benchmark US light, sweet crudes traded as high as $80/bbl before closing at $79.36/bbl Dec. 31, 2009, in what many described as a 78% price jump during 2009 and its biggest surge since 1999 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
• 01/11/2010 -- Cold weather saps distillates surplus
  Colder weather across much of the northern hemisphere in late December and early January accelerated the burn-off of a global distillate fuel surplus.
• 01/18/2010 -- Energy markets in transition
  This year will likely see a transition of energy markets back to “traditional fundamentals” of supply, demand, and inventories in place of the financial, currency, and equity market drivers that dominated 2009,” said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist, Deutsche Bank, Washington, DC.
• 02/01/2010 -- Floating inventories fall
  The volume of crude in storage on supertankers at sea has fallen well below 40 million bbl from a peak of 100 million bbl last May.
• 02/08/2010 -- PIIGS trample energy prices
  Energy prices flopped with crude down 5% for its biggest 1-day loss in 6 months Feb. 4, then tumbled below $70/bbl to a 7-week low before “bottom pickers” bid prices back above $71/bbl Feb. 5 on the New York market, amid growing global concern that the weak economies of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain (PIIGS) may undermine Europe’s recovery from the recession.
• 02/15/2010 -- EIA may underestimate gas demand
  The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration may be underestimating natural gas demand with much of the US South and Northeast enveloped in yet another round of cold weather that boosted gas and electricity demand in January through early February, said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist, Deutsche Bank, Washington, DC.
• 02/22/2010 -- Futures price contango compresses
  There has been a gradual compression this year of the futures price contango for key benchmark crudes, with the narrowing most evident at the front of the North Sea Brent curve.
• 03/08/2010 -- Oil futures top $80/bbl
  After failing to sustain pushes above $80/bbl in four previous sessions, April crude closed at $80.87/bbl Mar. 3, up $1.19 for the day in the highest closing for a front-month contract in 7 weeks in the New York market as the euro strengthened against the US dollar.