Commodities

Oil and natural gas daily review (September 26, 2012)

Contributed by Angel Broking

Crude Oil

Nymex crude oil prices declined around 0.6 percent yesterday taking cues from rise in US crude oil inventories along with strength in the DX.

Additionally, expectations that stimulus measures taken by central banks of the major economies will not be sufficient enough to boost the global economic growth added downside pressure on the prices. Crude oil prices touched an intra-day low of $90.57/bbl and closed at $91.40/bbl in yesterday's trading session.

On the domestic bourses, prices declined around 0.1 percent and closed at Rs.4,895/bbl after touching an intra-day low of Rs.4,884/bbl on Tuesday.

API Inventories Data

As per the American Petroleum Institute (API) report last night, US crude oil inventories increased by 335,000 barrels to 361.785 million barrels for the week ending on 21st September 2012.

Gasoline inventories gained around 112,000 barrels to 197.928 million barrels and whereas distillate inventories dropped by 483,000 million barrels to 127.306 million barrels for the same week.

EIA Inventories Forecast

The US Energy Department (EIA) is scheduled to release its weekly inventories report today at 8:00pm IST and US crude oil inventories is expected to rise by 0.9 million barrels for the week ending on 21st September 2012.

Gasoline stocks are expected to increase by 0.2 million barrels whereas distillate inventories are expected to gain by 0.8 million barrels for the same period.

Outlook

In today's session, we expect crude oil prices to trade lower on the back of expectations of rise in US crude oil inventories along with strength in the DX. On the domestic front, depreciation in the Indian Rupee will cushion sharp fall in the prices on the MCX.