Commodities » Energy

Oil and natural gas daily review (February 19, 2010)

Contributed by Nirmal Bang

By Nirmal Bang

MARKET ROUNDUP

Crude Oil pared gains in late Thursday trade after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced it was raising the interest rate it charges banks for emergency loans.

IN FOCUS

- U.S. crude oil inventories rose more than expected last week as imports increased, while distillates fell well beyond forecasts with cold weather across much of the nation lifting demand, according to government data issued Thursday.

- Workers at Total's six French oil refineries extended their strike action on Thursday and some petrol stations could now run out of fuel in the next few days, the CGT union said.

- Cosmo Oil Co Ltd, Japan's fourth-biggest refiner, which has a contract for around 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crudes for this year, will cut its term crude supplies by about 10 percent for its new contract that starts in April, one of the sources said on the condition of anonymity because the information is not public.

- Pasadena Refining shut down a crude silane unit at the 100,000 barrel-per-day (pbd) Texas refinery on Thursday for maintenance, a filing with state environmental regulators showed.

- Despite holding some of the world's largest oil reserves, OPEC member Venezuela has refining and power generation problems that are forcing it to import increasing amounts of fuel. Venezuela, for years a supplier of refined products to the United States and Latin America, imported growing amounts of oil products during 2009, according to governmentbacked statistics, amid frequent unplanned refinery outages.

FUNDAMENTAL OUTLOOK

Crude oil future is trading lower on NYMEX today. We expect crude oil to take cues from the equity markets later in the day as demand uncertainty still prevails in this complex.