America's LargestPosts Tagged oil supply
Nigerian Unrest Cuts into Oil Production for Fifth Consecutive Month, Shell Reports
It’s a story all too familiar: a developing nation has a plethora of natural resources; however, a confusing and violent political quagmire prevents this country from being able to gain wealth from the gifts it has been handed.
In the past, these situations were nothing more than stories on the back pages of newspapers. But in [...]
Supply Concerns Help Push Crude to New High Price for 2009
At 9:46 am EDT, the price of crude had risen 0.4 percent to $59.25 a barrel and the price of heating oil had fallen a fraction of a percent.
HEAT USA Price Report
Today’s average retail heating oil price per gallon: UP $0.04
Morning projection (for Wednesday’s price per gallon): UP $0.01
Oil Prices Up; Crude Closes at 6-Month High
The price of crude rose 0.6 percent to close at $58.85 a barrel and the price of heating oil closed 0.41 percent higher.
HEAT USA Price Report
Evening projection (for Wednesday’s average retail heating oil price per gallon): UP $0.01
Oil Prices Slip Back as Full Inventories and Low Demand Reassert Influence
The price of crude oil 1.2 percent to close at $53.84 a barrel and the price of heating oil closed 0.5 percent below yesterday’s close.
HEAT USA Price Report
Evening projection (for Wednesday’s average retail heating oil price per gallon): DOWN $0.01
Senator Proposes National Reserves of Refined Petroleum Products
Writing for Reuters last week, Tom Dogget reported that Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wants the federal government to create emergency stockpiles of specific petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel fuel, to help offset supply disruptions such as those experienced when recent hurricanes [...]
Read More »Oil Prices Jump Up on Improved Consumer Confidence
The price of crude rose 4 percent today to settle at $53.20 a barrel and the price of heating oil gained 3.5 percent.
HEAT USA Price Report
Evening projection (for Monday’s average retail heating oil price per gallon): UP $0.04
Canadian Tar Sands Projects Still Stalled Despite Falling Costs
The world’s biggest crude oil reserves aren’t in the Middle East – they’re across our northern border, in Alberta, Canada.
The problem is that Alberta’s crude oil isn’t trapped with water and gas under a layer of sedimentary rock. It’s in the form of tar sands, which are costlier and less efficient to produce than “conventional” [...]
Looking Backward, Analyst Finds Argument Against Coming Oil Price Shock
Last week, The HEAT Zone reported on a consensus among many oil price experts that current economic conditions are laying the foundations of an imminent oil “price shock” that could take place as soon as three months from now. Over the weekend, Morgan Stanley asset manager and Newsweek columnist Ruchir Sharma took the opposite [...]
Read More »US Refineries Shut Down for Spring Cleaning, but Prices Should Stay Steady
Every spring, after the high demand for heating oil during the winter has passed and before the high demand for gasoline during the summer driving season has started, oil refineries cut back on production to perform regular maintenance of their facilities. Typically, the reduction in refinery output in the US tightens the balance between [...]
Read More »Oil Analysts are Closely Watching OPEC
Since their meeting on March 15, OPEC has been receiving a lot of watchful attention from the EIA and other oil market analysts. These forecasters are monitoring the organization in an effort to learn how OPEC is going to adapt to a lower global demand for oil as well as how they are going to [...]
Read More »Collision of Two US Navy Vessels in Straight of Hormuz Causes Brief Spike in Oil Prices
A US submarine and US amphibious ship collided in the Straight of Hormuz, between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula today, sending oil the price of crude on a short rally before it returned to its downward track.
News of the incident reached the US in the late morning, causing the price of crude to jump $0.39 [...]
Dissenting Opinion: Crude Price Could Go Lower
In the last three weeks, a consensus among oil industry experts has emerged: the price of crude has found its “floor” at $40 a barrel. Data has shown that OPEC’s aggressive output cuts and unprecedented level of compliance with those cuts have succeeded in tightening the oil market and lifting the price of crude. [...]
Read More »IEA and OPEC Spar Over Future Oil Prices, Production Expansion
OPEC spokesman Abdullah al-Badri criticized comments made yesterday by the International Energy Agency’s Nobuo Tanaka as “confusing and misleading,” Guardian.co.UK reports.
Mr. Tanaka had warned that more oil price spikes like those seen last summer could occur by 2013 if more oil producers do not increase their investment in oil production and expand output. With current [...]
OPEC Cuts May Have Succeeded in Creating Floor for Oil Prices
Rueters reported today that the substantial output cuts implemented by OPEC over the last six months might have succeeded in stopping the slide of oil prices.
Since September of 2008, OPEC nations have agreed to production cuts that amount to a 4.2 million-barrel-per-day reduction of total crude output. The remarkable aspect of that enormous reduction is [...]
Pipe Explosion Causes Shell Facility Shut-Downs in Nigeria
A major crude pipeline connecting Nigerian Shell Oil facilities to the southern export terminal in Escravos exploded over the weekend, causing a shut-down in production at several Shell facilities. The explosion is believed to be caused by sabotage, the VOA news service reports.
Shell’s oil infrastructure in Nigeria has been the target of numerous attacks by [...]
Oil Prices Down Again on Persistent Demand Concerns
The price of crude oil, following its biggest one-day gain of 2009 yesterday, dropped sharply this morning, weighed down by resurgent worries over demand for oil in a world mired in recession. New depths plumbed by European and Asian stock markets today reinforced the global nature of the current recession and showed that strong [...]
Read More »Refining Cuts, Costly Foreign Oil Keep Gas Prices High While Crude Price Sinks
With the world economy facing a major slowdown and crude prices dropping in recent weeks, how can the retail price for gasoline be going up? Frustrated drivers around the country have been asking that question since the beginning of the year, when average retail prices of gasoline began their steady climb. The answer to that [...]
Read More »Saudi Oil Minister: Switching to Renewables too Fast Could Bring About “Nightmare Scenario”
Yesterday, at a meeting of oil executives from around the world in Houston, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi made a speech that warned against shifting from oil to renewable energy sources too quickly, the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog reported this morning.
An attempt to phase out oil-based energy sources and switch to renewable power [...]
OPEC Adheres to Planned Production Cuts, Stops Falling Oil Prices
Throughout its history, OPEC has had difficulties following through on agreed-upon reductions in oil output. As a HEAT Zone post from last November explained, the member nations of OPEC have very different resources and political alignments. These differences are most apparent in times of low oil prices, when less wealthy member nations “cheat” on the [...]
Read More »Can Crude Prices Support Supply and Demand Realities to Stay Above $40?
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that market analysts are wary of the recent rise in the price of crude as demand remains low and crude-based inventories swell. The market is currently “reassessing the merits” of yesterday’s late-day rally by crude prices on optimism over President Obama’s forthcoming economic stimulus package. The [...]
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