Commodities

Oil and natural gas daily review (January 08 2013)

Contributed by Angel Broking

Crude Oil

Nymex crude oil prices increased around 0.1 percent yesterday taking cues from expectations of rise in demand for the fuel from the US. Additionally, Iran's crude oil exports declined by 40 percent on account of sanctions from the US also supported an upside in the prices.

Apart from that weakness in the DX also acted as a positive factor for the crude prices. Oil prices touched an intra-day high of $93.35/bbl and closed at $93.26/bbl in yesterday's trading session.

On the domestic bourses, prices gained by 0.7 percent as a result of depreciation in the Indian Rupee and closed at Rs.5,149/bbl after touching an intra-day high of Rs.5,156/bbl on Monday.

API Inventories Forecast

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is scheduled to release its weekly inventories today and US crude oil inventories are expected to decline by 0.3 million barrels for the week ending on 4th January 2012. Gasoline stocks are expected to rise by 2.3 million barrels and distillate inventories are expected to gain by 1.3 million barrels for the same week.

Outlook

In the intra-day we expect crude oil prices to trade with upward bias on expectation of rise in the demand as economic indicators from the major consuming nations came on a favorable note in the last week. Further, lower US stockpiles might also act as a supportive factor for the crude oil prices. Weakness in the DX might add to the gains in the crude oil prices. In the domestic markets, appreciation in the rupee is expected to exert downside pressure in MCX Crude oil prices.