Sam Fletcher
Senior Writer
HOUSTON, Jan. 25 -- Crude prices continued to decline Jan. 24 despite a shootout at another oil company facility in Nigeria that left nine people dead.
Militants dressed in camouflage attacked Agip SPA's office in Port Harcourt and stole $28,000. They escaped in speedboats after a shootout with security forces that killed eight officers and one company employee. Agip's parent ENI SPA later said it has evacuated staff and workers from that area.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC earlier shut in production of 221,000 b/d of crude because of attacks by militants on its facilities in Nigeria (OGJ Online, Jan. 20, 2006).
Meanwhile, Ali I. al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, reassured world markets that there is a large enough supply of crude to meet global demand this winter (OGJ Online, Jan. 24, 2006).
The US Energy Information Administration said Jan. 25 that commercial US crude inventories fell by 2.3 million bbl to 319.1 million bbl in the week ended Jan. 20. However, gasoline stocks rose by 3.2 million bbl to 214.8 million bbl, while distillate fuel inventories increased by 1.8 million bbl to 136.5 million bbl. Most of the distillate increase was in heating oil.
US imports of crude were down by 589,000 b/d to 9.3 million b/d. Input of crude into US refineries declined by 14,000 b/d to 14.7 million b/d during the week ending Jan. 20. Refineries were operating at 86.2% of capacity with some undergoing maintenance during that week.
Energy prices
The March contract for benchmark US light, sweet crudes dropped $1.04 to $67.06/bbl Jan. 24 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The April position retreated by $1.02 to $67.65/bbl. On the US spot market, West Texas Intermediate at Cushing, Okla., was down by $1.11 to $66.75/bbl. Gasoline for February delivery fell by 4.88¢ to $1.74/gal on NYMEX. Heating oil for the same month lost 2.38¢ to $1.82/gal.
However, the February natural gas contract gained 10.8¢ to $8.68/MMbtu on NYMEX as a result of short-covering by speculators after a big price drop in the previous session, said analysts at Enerfax Daily.
In London, the March contract for North Sea Brent crude lost 82¢ to $65.34/bbl on the International Petroleum Exchange. Gas oil for February declined by $5 to $564.25/tonne.
The average price for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' basket of 11 benchmark crudes lost 39¢ to $60.51/bbl on Jan. 24.
Contact Sam Fletcher at [email protected].
