In Oil & Companies News 15/02/2016
Oil advanced a second day, rising above $30 a barrel in New York for the first time in almost a week.
West Texas Intermediate futures rose as much as 2.4 percent in New York after surging 12 percent on Friday. Speculators’ long positions in WTI through Feb. 9 rose to the highest since June, according to data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Iran loaded its first cargo to Europe since international sanctions ended, while Chinese crude imports eased from a record.
Oil in New York is down about 20 percent this year. While outlook for increased Iranian exports threatens to further boost record oil stockpiles, major companies including Chevron Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. are curbing spending on the exploration and development of new resources. Crude surged the most in seven years on Feb. 12 after the United Arab Emirates repeated OPEC’s readiness to engage with other producers.
“The oversupply will decrease sharply over the course of the year,” Andy Sommer, an analyst at Axpo Trading AG in Dietikon, Switzerland, said by e-mail. “Developments in supply and demand mean the market will very closely avoid hitting tank-top levels.”
WTI for March delivery gained as much as 71 cents to $30.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $29.88 at 1:12 p.m. London time. The contract gained $3.23, or 12 percent, to close at $29.44 on Friday after dropping 19 percent the previous six sessions. Total volume traded was in line with above the 100-day average. WTI prices lost 4.7 percent last week.
Idle Rigs
Brent for April settlement increased as much as 61 cents to $33.97 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract climbed $3.30 to close at $33.36 on Friday. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $1.44 to WTI for April.
In the U.S., drillers idled rigs for an eighth week to the lowest level since January 2010, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. The number of active rigs dropped by 28 to 439, the company said on its website Friday.
Speculators’ long position in WTI rose by 1,152 contracts to 302,384 futures and options, according to CFTC data. Shorts, or bets that prices will decline, slipped 2.1 percent. Net-longs increased 5 percent to a three-month high.
A tanker for France’s Total SA was being loaded Sunday at Kharg Island while vessels chartered for Chinese and Spanish companies were due to arrive later the same day, an Iranian oil ministry official said.
Iran, which was the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries before sanctions were intensified in 2012, is seeking to boost output by 1 million barrels a day and regain market share after penalties were lifted. Total, Spanish refiner Compania Espanola de Petroleos and Russia’s Lukoil PJSC all booked cargoes to sail from Kharg Island to European ports, according to shipping reports compiled by Bloomberg earlier this month.
China’s crude imports declined 20 percent in January from December to the lowest in three months as state refiners slowed operations amid swelling stockpiles of fuel. The world’s largest energy consumer in January cut imports by 4.6 percent from a year ago to 26.69 million metric tons, or about 6.3 million barrels a day, according to preliminary data released Monday from the General Administration of Customs in Beijing. Imports reached a record 33.2 million tons in December.
