MARKET WATCH: Crude oil price rises in mixed market
The front-month crude contract increased 0.3% July 15 in the New York futures market, accompanying gains in the equity market as “better-than-feared” Chinese growth data outweighed subpar US retail sales, said analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc.
However, energy stocks bucked both the higher price of crude and the rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, with the SIG Oil Exploration & Production Index dipping 0.1% and the Oil Service Index down 0.3%.
“Crude oil markets are still being buoyed by geopolitical concerns, largely shrugging off yesterday’s disappointing US retails sales numbers,” said Marc Ground at Standard New York Securities Inc., the Standard Bank Group. Oil futures were up in early trading July 16 with the market anticipating another strong drawdown of US crude inventories for a third consecutive week.
“Analysts are looking for gasoline inventories to drop 1.7 million bbl, while distillate stocks are seen rising 1.5 million bbl. Refinery utilization rates are expected to ease by 0.4%,” Ground said.
Energy prices
The August and September contracts for benchmark US sweet, light crudes rose 37¢ each to $106.32/bbl and $105.92/bbl, respectively, July 15 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On the US spot market, West Texas Intermediate at Cushing, Okla., was up by the same amount to match the closing price of the August futures contract.
Heating oil for August delivery dipped 0.33¢ but closed essentially unchanged at a rounded $3.03/gal on NYMEX. Reformulated stock for oxygenate blending for the same month retreated 1.46¢ to $3.10/gal.
The August natural gas contract continued its rally, up 3¢ to $3.67/MMbtu on NYMEX. On the US spot market, gas at Henry Hub, La., regained 6.2¢ to $3.68/MMbtu.
In London, the August IPE contract for North Sea Brent increased 28¢ to $109.09/bbl. Gas oil for August inched up 25¢ to $916.50/tonne.
The average price for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ basket of 12 benchmark crudes gained 49¢ to $105.31/bbl.
Contact Sam Fletcher at [email protected].
About the Author
Sam Fletcher
Senior Writer
I'm third-generation blue-collar oil field worker, born in the great East Texas Field and completed high school in the Permian Basin of West Texas where I spent a couple of summers hustling jugs and loading shot holes on seismic crews. My family was oil field trash back when it was an insult instead of a brag on a bumper sticker. I enlisted in the US Army in 1961-1964 looking for a way out of a life of stoop-labor in the oil patch. I didn't succeed then, but a few years later when they passed a new GI Bill for Vietnam veterans, they backdated it to cover my period of enlistment and finally gave me the means to attend college. I'd wanted a career in journalism since my junior year in high school when I was editor of the school newspaper. I financed my college education with the GI bill, parttime work, and a few scholarships and earned a bachelor's degree and later a master's degree in mass communication at Texas Tech University. I worked some years on Texas daily newspapers and even taught journalism a couple of semesters at a junior college in San Antonio before joining the metropolitan Houston Post in 1973. In 1977 I became the energy reporter for the paper, primarily because I was the only writer who'd ever broke a sweat in sight of an oil rig. I covered the oil patch through its biggest boom in the 1970s, its worst depression in the 1980s, and its subsequent rise from the ashes as the industry reinvented itself yet again. When the Post folded in 1995, I made the switch to oil industry publications. At the start of the new century, I joined the Oil & Gas Journal, long the "Bible" of the oil industry. I've been writing about the oil and gas industry's successes and setbacks for a long time, and I've loved every minute of it.