Posted on 11/23/2007 5:35:44 PM PST by thackney
Oil futures resumed their march toward $100 a barrel today, rising to a new record close in light holiday trading on concerns about tight heating oil supplies while also drawing support from a buoyant stock market.
At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices retreated further from their most recent peak, falling 0.1 cent overnight to a national average of $3.086 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices rose sharply from mid-October until last week, but have fallen 2.6 cents since, countering predictions that gas prices were destined to add another 10 to 15 cents a gallon to catch up with skyrocketing crude prices.
Analysts now say gas prices are likely to hold steady or even slide a little unless oil rises beyond $100 a barrel.
Oil prices drew support from heating oil futures, which set new records on concerns about tight supplies heading into the winter heating season. Inventories of distillates, which include heating oil, fell sharply last week, the Energy Department reported on Wednesday.
Light, sweet crude for January delivery rose 89 cents to settle at $98.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, besting the previous settlement record by 15 cents, while December heating oil futures rose 1.68 cents to settle at $2.7042 a gallon after earlier setting a new trading record of $2.7181 a gallon.
Crude prices are within the range of inflation-adjusted highs set in early 1980. Depending on how the adjustment is calculated, $38 a barrel then would be worth $96 to $103 or more today.
Heating oil prices are rising due to falling supplies at home and overseas, analysts said.
"The heating oil market, it's more of a global story," said Andrew Lebow, senior vice president of MF Global Inc. in New York. "Because of refinery problems in Europe, (supplies) are kind of tight."
Energy futures also drew support from today's rise in the stock market. Energy investors often view stocks as a proxy for the economy's strength, betting that a stronger economy will use more oil and gasoline.
Oil traders shrugged off data suggesting OPEC is increasing production more quickly than expected. Oil Movements, an oil tanker tracking firm based in the UK, reported that Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries oil exports are likely to jump by an average of 720,000 barrels a day in the four weeks ended Dec. 8, more than the expected 500,000 barrels per day.
Oil prices rose 43 percent between August and early November on falling domestic inventories, concerns about supply disruptions overseas and, many analysts argue, speculative buying. But recent forecasts have suggested high prices are cutting demand. The inventory picture has become cloudy, too.
Two weeks ago, domestic oil inventories rose unexpectedly. Last week, supplies fell more than expected, but rose at the Nymex delivery point in Cushing, Okla. Falling supplies at the terminal are seen as a symptom of a tight market, but last week's gain in Cushing supplies eased those concerns.
Yipppppeee!!
Hey you phony blow hard libs....one word...
ANWAR!!!!!
That's about right. If we resumed our own domestic crude production, I think speculators would go away.
Make our politicians pay for their own gas and their families gas and you may see them drilling our own oil. Make them pay for their own health insurance and start paying into Social Security and you will see changes there also. Right now they have no insentive to do anything....they are on a free ride. How many of you can work on a job for four years and get full retirement? And.....vote yourself a raise whenever you want it?
they are all disgusting..Term Limits and then they get to run again!
It may have closed a new record, but it did not hit a new record. I know that it hit over 99$ the other day.
Speculation pretty much sums it up.
Crude supplies are artificially constructed numbers.
I am in agreement with you if building more refineries is what you intended as more production.
Stocks should be compared to consumption. We are have less supply on hand than we used to keep.
U.S. Crude Oil excluding SPR Days of Supply (Number of Days)
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/w_epc0_vsd_nus_daysw.htm
We have a far greater shortfall of domestic crude oil production than we do of refinery operations.
What I believe you are seeing is the collapse of the value of the dollar. High cost are not merely a result of supply but the weakness of the dollar is creating a demand for more of them in payment. Value exists as a perception; the dollar's gig may be about up. It is backed by nothing but buying power and it is printed at will arbitrarily. This worked for a while as long as there was trust, but greedy powers have relied on bad credit to the point the dollar appears to be doomed as the global currency.
Do we have gold or tangible assets to back the dollar? Do we have enough manufacturing and industry to back it up? What is behind the dollar? What if other nations start quietly shifting to other currencies for trade, like they are? Russia and China are hip to this and have used us to build their economies but when they feel the have the upper hand they will work with Venezuela, Iran and others to collapse our economy without destroying theirs by shifting to the euro and other foreign currencies. We will by far be more affected than they will and they don't care that much about their people who don't have all that much anyway.
They will suck all they can out of the power of the dollar until it is so weak that they they see more gain by sinking us. Then they will dump us and the dollar and seek to establish themselves as the global powers that be.
We have been sold out by both parties and mega-beast-corporations.
I agree with the first half of your comment....however.....it's been many years since a new refinery has been approved and/or built on the East coast.
FYI...I could be wrong....but I'm tired from Black Friday...(retail store owner...who opened at a respectable 11:00 AM tho on the go from 5 AM) And need to catch a few hours sleep before the weekend.
If anyone has numbers of new refineries I would like to take a look at them.
No, in this country because of NIMBY’s and environmentalists, it very difficult to build a new refinery. Instead the industry has been upgrading and expanding existing refineries such that the growth of gasoline production is close to the growth of gasoline consumption.
U.S. Weekly Finished Motor Gasoline Production
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wgfrpus24.htm
U.S. Weekly Finished Motor Gasoline Product Supplied
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wgfupus24.htm
OK. I’ll trust you on this. Bookmarked this post for a later read. Thanks.
technically congress must vote against annual pay raises as they are automatic. They voted that in quite a while back. A few will vote against it but only for show most likely.
NYMEX crude oil index 108.07
I hope this news is not instantly out of date like most of these oil threads.
Maybe the business news media is burned out about new oil price records. Ran out of alarming words to use.
Agreed. They’ve probably also discovered that tomorrow could bring a supply problem. Asian markets are inflating and backing down a little but not decreasing demand for oil.
And the Arabs are afraid of poking more holes in their fields and sucking it out too fast (according to the Arabs). ;-)
I wouldn’t even try to guess what the oil Arabs might do, nor listen to them. Tomorrow everything could be different. Iran is more dependable and they mean what they say.
LOL! That’s true.
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