Headlines
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Stronger dollar weights on crude and precious metals price drop
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Worries about global recovery send base metals down
Brent and Distillates
Crude oil prices fell on Wednesday extending the previous session's decline, as fears of a protracted economic recovery in the United States drove investors to continue to take profit from oil's recent rally.
Last week U.S. crude stocks rose 800 kb, below the consensus forecast for an increase of 1.8 mln.b, even if crude stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma fell 500 kb. However, focus aimed at rising petrol supplies, with stocks up 1.7mln.b, confounding the consensus forecast for a drop of 800 kb. Profit margins on petrol for refiners have improved substantially in recent weeks and this encouraged higher production. Refinery utilisation rose 0.7 % to 81.8 %. On the contrary distillate stocks fell 2.1 mln.b. above the consensus forecast for a fall of 1.1mln.b as colder weather boosted demand in the US north-east region.
OPEC seems to be ready to boost oil output if it sees a real shortage in supply and a fall in inventories, oil ministers from the group said as crude prices traded near a one-year high. Some in OPEC countries have since last week been raising the prospect of an output increase, a sign they are concerned the rallying oil price could hamper economic recovery.
European oilfield services companies Petroleum Geo-Services, Subsea 7 and Saipem said that signs of a gradual recovery were appearing in the offshore services sector.
China's Sinopec Corp made a loss in its refining business this month because of the recent rally in crude oil prices, Senior Vice President Zhang Jianhua said on Wednesday. Zhang's remarks came as Chinese fuel dealers were anticipating another imminent government fuel price hike under a price regime that tracks global crude costs. Beijing last trimmed gasoline and diesel prices by 3 % in late September.
Chevron's crude oil production in Angola will rise by a quarter in the next two years and it expects new discoveries to boost the country's oil production further, Ali Moshiri, Chevron's president for Africa and Latin America said. Chevron is one of Angola's largest oil producers, responsible for operating oilfields with an output of over 500 kb/d of oil in 2008.
Mexico's state oil monopoly Pemex posted a loss of 273 mln.$ in the third quarter, less than it lost in the same period a year ago, the company said Pemex results improved due to lower taxes and cheaper fuel imports but these positive factors were partially outweighed by reduced volumes of crude oil exports.
ConocoPhillips has no plans to shutter any refineries at this time but will slash refinery utilization rates this quarter due to weak profit margins. Fourth-quarter refinery utilization rates are seen in the upper 70 % range, down from about 90 % in the third quarter.
