Crude Oil Prices Pass Above $100 Per Barrel, Developments Point to Continuous Surge

Crude futures surge above $100

www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-20 05:39:11

·Crude futures surged above 100 U.S. dollars a barrel Tuesday on supply concerns. ·It's the first time the crude prices closed above 100 dollars. ·An explosion at a refinery in Texas, the falling dollar and ...boosted the prices.

NEW YORK, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) --

Crude futures surged above 100 U.S. dollars a barrel Tuesday on supply concerns.

It's the first time the crude prices closed above 100 dollars.

Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose 4.51 dollars at a record 100.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising to 100.10 dollars, a new trading record.

An explosion at a 67,000 barrel per day refinery in Texas, the falling dollar and the possibility that OPEC may cut production next month boosted the prices, said analysts.

Other energy futures also jumped Tuesday. March gasoline jumped 10.93 cents to settle at 2.6031 dollars a gallon, and March heating oil rose 11.45 cents to settle at 2.7614 dollars a gallon.

Chavez: Venezuela does not plan to halt U.S. oil exports

www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-18 10:35:37

CARACAS, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) --

Venezuela has no plans to halt oil exports to the United States as long as the U.S. does not invade Venezuela, the nation's president, Hugo Chavez, said in his weekly broadcast Alo Presidente.

"If it assaults us, and tries to harm us as it has previously, then we will have to take the decision not to send them even one drop of oil," Chavez said.

In the same show last week, Chavez said the nation was "ready" to stop shipments to the U.S. in response to judicial action by U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil to freeze 12 billion U.S. dollars of assets belonging to state-run oil company Petroleos Venezuela in January.

The U.S. oil company is seeking compensation for its forced exit from the Orinoco Petroliferous Strip, as a result of the Venezuelan government's May 2007 decision to raise its stake in the nation's oil operations to 85 percent from around 45 percent earlier.

Eleven of the 13 foreign companies operating in Venezuela accepted the terms, but Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips, who controlled 51 percent of their operations prior to May 2007, refused to comply.

The Orinoco Petroliferous Strip has 235 billion barrels of petrol in deposits, which Chavez estimated as equivalent to 200 years' worth of oil. It produces around 600,000 barrels a day.

Editor: Sun Yunlong

Venezuelan oil company stops oil sales to Exxon Mobil

www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-13 08:22:25

CARACAS/NEW YORK, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) --

Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) has stopped oil sales to U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp., the Venezuelan company announced in a statement Tuesday.

Petroleos said it has also suspended commercial relations with Exxon Mobil, after courts in Britain, the Netherlands and United States agreed to freeze assets worth 12 billion U.S. dollars owned by PDVSA at Exxon's request in a battle for compensation over the loss of a project in Venezuela's drive to nationalize its energy sector.

Calling Exxon's move "judicial and economic harassment," the statement described it as "an act of reciprocity."

Announcing that "PDVSA has decided to suspend commercial relations" with Exxon, the Venezuelan firm said it "reserves the right to terminate those contracts whose terms permit them to be rescinded."

Venezuelan Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, who is also head of PDVSA, told the Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias that "we are ready" to cut off oil shipments to the United States.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan Deputy Energy and Oil Minister Bernard Mommer termed the court orders "pure fantasy."

The minister told Venezuelan TV program En Confianza that PDVSA had never been granted a chance to present its arguments during the lawsuits.

Major oil companies including France's Total, Britain's BP Plc and Norway's Statoihydro ASA agreed to submit to the nationalization drive and have negotiated deals with Venezuela to continue as minority partners in the Venezuela's oil projects.

Exxon is the only one which rejected Venezuela's change of policy while talks with Conoco Phillips are still open, said Mommer, criticizing Exxon's move as an attempt to create a negative atmosphere.

EXXON SAYS TO ENSURE SUPPLY

Exxon, after Venezuela's oil sales announcement, said on Tuesday that it will take necessary measures to ensure oil supply.

"It is our long-standing practice to take appropriate steps to meet our customers' needs," said Exxon's spokeswoman Margaret Ross.

JPMorgan analyst Katherine Spector, in a note written to clients Tuesday, said any disruption to the U.S.-Venezuela oil trade would be "unlikely."

"A halt in U.S.-bound exports would ultimately be more devastating to PDVSA than U.S. refiners, especially if carried out for a sustained period," she said.

INTERNATIONAL ENERGY BODY CONCERNED BY VENEZUELA'S DECISION

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) on Tuesday expressed its concern over Venezuela's decision.

"We are carefully watching," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka told reporters at an energy conference in U.S. Houston.

The IEA is "prepared to move" oil from its strategic reserve if the Venezuelan move causes physical constraints in the oil market, he said.

The head of the energy advisor to 27 oil-consuming countries including the United States asked its member states to hold oil stockpiles equivalent to no fewer than 90 days of the prior year's net imports.

He also warned Venezuela that it may eat its own bitter fruit. "Venezuelan oil is a very heavy crude, and the demand for it is in the Gulf of Mexico," Tanaka said. So if Venezuela tries to cut exports to the United States, the cut-off will "choke" Venezuela's own demand, he added.

Editor: Du G

OPEC rules out increase in oil production

www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-04 11:21:13

BEIJING, Feb. 4 -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to keep oil production targets unchanged at its meeting in Vienna on Friday as the slowing U.S. economy threatens to curb energy demand.

The decision was "easy" to make as oil market fundamentals are "sound," Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said.

The expected economic slowdown means the group's current production is sufficient to meet demand in the first quarter, OPEC President Chakib Khelil told a press conference.

OPEC rebuffed a request from U.S. President George W. Bush for more oil and delayed discussion of a supply cut to bolster prices until March. Oil has slipped nine percent from a January 3 record of 100.09 U.S. dollars a barrel.

"They are very concerned about increasing output at a time when there are big question marks about demand growth in the economy," said Mike Wittner, head of oil market research at Societe Generale SA in London. "They have a lot of flexibility because there is another meeting a month from now." White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "We hope that they understand that their decisions on oil production have a real impact on the economy." Fratto is traveling with Bush to Kansas City for a fundraiser.

Crude oil for March delivery sank 1.75 dollars to 90 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday morning.

Ministers from most of OPEC's 13 nations had already said last week there was no need to alter targets. The decision was expected by 90 percent of analysts polled by Bloomberg News.

OPEC will meet in coming months to monitor economic conditions, including its next scheduled meeting on March 5 in Vienna. A conference of producing and consuming countries is planned for April 20 in Rome.

Venezuela's Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari both said after Friday's Vienna meeting that the group may need to cut supply at its next gathering to prevent oil inventories becoming too high.

Bush said during a January 15 visit to Saudi Arabia that OPEC should increase production and relieve the strain of rising energy costs. The Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate two days ago by half a percentage point to three percent, the second cut in as many weeks, to prevent the US economy from sinking into a recession.

The world should be "more concerned about the economy" as there is "plenty of oil," said OPEC's Khelil, who is also Algeria's oil minister.

Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities research at Merrill Lynch and Co, said oil consumption may not be dented that much by a slowdown in the US, where regular gasoline averaged 2.977 dollars a gallon at the pump this week.

"Even under a case of U.S. recession, we are going to see a very, very mild downturn in demand in the United States., if any," Blanch said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We have a very harsh winter going on in China ... so I think China might be demanding a fair amount of oil over the next few months."

World oil demand will fall by 1.5 million barrels a day, or 1.7 percent of total consumption, in the second quarter from the first, as the end of winter in the Northern Hemisphere cuts heating fuel use, according to the International Energy Agency.

Partly for that reason, OPEC hasn't announced a supply increase in January or February since 2003, when members had to make up for production lost during a strike in Venezuela.

The collective target for 12 OPEC members remains 29.673 million barrels a day, OPEC's head of research Hasan Qabazard said.

(Source: Shanghai Daily)

Editor: Mo Hong'e

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