Sam Fletcher
Senior Writer
HOUSTON, Nov. 11 -- Energy prices continued to fall Nov. 10 with crude hitting a 5-month low on the New York market as traders ignored probable terrorist attacks earlier this week at three international hotels in Amman, Jordan, and focused instead on recent builds in US petroleum inventories.
The Energy Information Administration reported Nov. 10 that 51 bcf of natural gas was injected into US underground storage in the week ended Nov. 4, exceeding the consensus of Wall Street analysts. US natural gas storage stands at 3.2 tcf, down by 93 bcf from last year but up by 123 bcf from the 5-year average.
Standard & Poor's US Equity Research lowered its Henry Hub, La., bid week price forecasts by 26¢ to $8.35/MMbtu for 2005 and by 3¢ to $9.53/MMbtu for 2006. "While warm weather and bearish storage reports have pushed US natural gas spot prices down to near $11/MMbtu, we believe these declines are temporary," said Tina Vital, an analyst with Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Cos. "With eastern US winter weather expected to be colder than normal, we expect above-average storage withdrawals and Gulf [of Mexico] production losses will lead to high US natural gas prices this winter, particularly for regions east of the Mississippi River."
The US Minerals Management Service said Nov. 10 that crews have not yet returned to 5 drilling rigs and 190 production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Shut-in production on federal leases in the gulf totaled 736,279 b/d of crude and 4 bcfd of natural gas. Total production lost from those waters since Aug. 26 now stands at 82.7 million bbl of cured and 426.4 bcf of natural gas, officials said.
Energy prices
The December contract for benchmark US light, sweet crudes fell by $1.13 to $57.80/bbl Nov. 10 on the US Mercantile Exchange. The January contact was down by $1.02 to $58.74/bl.
Heating oil for December delivery dropped 4.61¢ to $1.74/gal on NYMEX, wiping out gains from the previous trading session. Gasoline for the same month retreated by 4.45¢ to $1.51/gal. Then December natural gas contract lost 28.9¢ to $11.38/MMbtu.
In London, the December contract for North Sea Brent crude declined by $1.20 to $55.68/bbl on the International Petroleum Exchange. Gas oil for November was unchanged at $530.25/tonne.
The average price for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' basket of 11 benchmark crudes dropped 90¢ to $51.30/bbl on Nov. 10.
Contact Sam Fletcher at [email protected].
