Monday October 29, 2007

"It's going crazy"

bloomberg.com :

Crude oil climbed above $93 a barrel for the first time, extending this month's gain to 16 percent, after Mexico shut down a fifth of its production because of a storm and the dollar fell to a record low. Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil monopoly and third- largest supplier of crude to the U.S., shut output of about 600,000 barrels, said Carlos Ramirez, a company spokesman in Mexico City.

The dollar dropped to $1.4426 per euro, the weakest since the introduction of the 13-nation common currency in 1999. Crude oil for December delivery rose as much as $1.33, or 1.5 percent, to an all-time high of $93.19 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"It's going crazy, shooting up way too fast," said Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist at Astmax Futures Ltd. in Tokyo. "It's only a matter of time before it hits $100. It may be today, tomorrow or in the next few days or weeks."

- Update : It's going crazier yet. The new record is $93.80.

(2007-10-29 13:22:54 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Mexico shutting 600,000 bpd oil output due to cold front

investing.reuters.co.uk :

Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex was shutting down about one-fifth of its daily output on Sunday [28 Oct 2007] due to bad weather, but said it expects to quickly resume output within days. Pemex said it had already shut wells with about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of production and would close another 400,000 bpd of production in the coming hours as a cold front hits the Gulf of Mexico area. The country's three main oil exporting ports were all closed on Sunday.

Pemex's move came days after a storm killed at least 21 oil workers and closed the main oil exporting ports of Coatzacoalcos, Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas. The disruption resulted in an inventory build-up at those ports and, with the new cold front in the Gulf, Pemex said it would not be able to move oil from the wells to the ports. Pemex produces about 3.1 million barrels of crude oil a day and is one of the top three suppliers to the United States.

- Talk about adding fuel to fire.

(2007-10-29 12:49:51 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Another day, another record ($92.79)

Another day, another record high in crude oil prices. $92.22 barely lasted one weekend. This morning, I got up, went to the office, and found myself sitting down to a new record : $92.79 per barrel Nymex crude oil delivery for Dec 2007.

This one looks dollar-driven. The news outlets are talking about the USD falling to yet another record low against the euro. At the moment of writing :

CAD/USD = 1.041667 (1.03 has been broken!)
EUR/USD = 1.4407 (1.43 has been broken!)
USD/SGD = 1.4531 (bye-bye 1.46)
SGD/MYR = 2.297297 (rising in tandem?)

The US dollar index, USDX, is at 76.894, having fallen below 77.

Compare this to the figures blogged earlier on 18 Sep 2007, barely one and a half months ago :

1. USD/SGD=1.5068 (how far the mighty have fallen)
2. SGD/MYR=2.310519
3. USD/CAD=1.0094 (notice how I've swapped around to CAD/USD nowadays!)
4. EUR/USD=1.3979 (compare & contrast!)

And the U.S. dollar index (was) : USDX=79.169

- Update : Scratch that last. The new record is :

$93.18
$93.19
$93.20

See also :

1. Oil rises to record $91.10 (26 Oct 2007)
2. Crude oil reaches record $90.02 after dollar drops against euro (19 Oct 2007)
3. Oil surges to record $88.20 (17 Oct 2007)
4. Oil futures hit new record above $86 (16 Oct 2007)
5. US dollar index falls below 80

(2007-10-29 10:13:26 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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