Sam Fletcher
Senior Writer
HOUSTON, Feb. 26 -- Crude prices climbed back above $99/bbl Feb. 25, led by a rally in heating fuels due to cold weather in parts of the US and Europe.
"Middle distillates continue to be the main support of the oil complex, while gasoline is still struggling to follow and crude oil is fighting to keep its head above the water," said Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix, Zug, Switzerland. The front-month crude futures contract has been trading the last 2 days below the 5-day moving average and "will need to gain further momentum or risk to see the slope of the short term moving averages starting to turn," he said.
Feb. 25 trading also was stimulated by Turkey's military incursion into northern Iraq, continued confrontations between the United Nations and Iran over its nuclear program, and the dispute between ExxonMobil Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela SA over the nationalization of heavy oil projects in that country.
In addition to those worries, dense fog disrupted tanker lightering operations along the Houston Ship Channel on Feb. 25.
Energy prices
The April contract for benchmark US sweet, light crudes traded as high as $99.70/bbl Feb. 25 before closing at $99.23/bbl, up 42¢ for the day on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The May contract rose 46¢ to $98.88/bbl.
On the US spot market, West Texas Intermediate at Cushing, Okla., was up 50¢ to $99.41/bbl. Heating oil for March delivery gained 2.23¢ to $2.79/gal on NYMEX. The March contract for reformulated blend stock for oxygenate blending (RBOB) inched up 0.82¢ to $2.54/gal.
The March natural gas contract price hit a 2-year high of $9.36/MMbtu in intraday trading on NYMEX before closing at $9.19/MMbtu, up 4¢ for the day. On the US spot market, gas at Henry Hub, La., escalated by 58¢ to $9.22/MMbtu.
In London, the April IPE contract for North Sea Brent gained 68¢ to $97.69/bbl. The March contract for gas oil hit a record intraday high of $901.25/tonne prior to closing at $899.50/tonne, up $9.50 for the day.
The average price for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' basket of 12 benchmark crudes gained $1.01 to $93.63/bbl on Feb. 25.
Contact Sam Fletcher at [email protected].
