U.S. crude steams above $33

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Wednesday June 14, 3:01 pm Eastern Time

U.S. crude steams above $33 on stockdraws, OPEC concern

By Matthew Robinson

NEW YORK, June 14 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil prices powered back up above $33 a barrel on Wednesday, as leading producers gave conflicting signals on whether they would release more supply to replace depleted stocks.

Prices have raced up nearly $3 in just three days, bringing crude back within sight of post-Gulf War highs above $34 struck three months ago.

July crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) traded up to $33.17 a barrel by 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, up 61 cents, the highest price seen since early March before the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) eased supply curbs to cool prices.

U.S. inventory data released late Tuesday and early Wednesday suggested that demand is continuing to outpace supply, with inventories of reformulated gasoline and crude stocks again off sharply.

For the week ended June 9, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed a 1.4 million barrel drop in U.S. crude inventories, while the American Petroleum Institute (API) showed drop of 2.1 million barrels.

The EIA reports showed a draw of 1.5 million barrels in reformulated gasoline stocks, with the API indicating a 1.9 million barrel draw.

Hardest hit were the U.S. Northeast and the Midwest, which encompasses the NYMEX crude contract delivery point in Cushing, Okla., which both posted big draws.

The price spike has pushed U.S. gasoline pump prices to record levels, and is feeding inflation concerns, the U.S. Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.

Yet producer group OPEC is giving few concrete clues on whether it will again seek to cool prices by releasing a big chunk of supply when it meets in Vienna on June 21.

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi said in an interview with industry newsletter Petroleum Argus that crude markets are balanced currently and no decision on increases has been made.

However, industry sources have said that Riyadh believes 500,000 barrel per day (bpd) increase may not be enough to ease prices, and that the cartel may need to add up to 1 million bpd at the cartel's June 21 meeting in Vienna.

On Tuesday, Chakib Khelil, oil minister of the normally price hawkish Algeria, said that he wished to see prices knocked back to around $25 a barrel.

Current OPEC President Ali Rodriguez of Venezuela urged caution, indicating strong prices may be due to a shortage of gasoline in the United States.

``We in OPEC have to be careful because if these prices do not respond to fundamental factors of supply and demand, we can't rush into measures that could produce strong disturbances in the market,'' Rodriguez said Tuesday.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Standard & Poor's Oil International Index (^SPOILI - news), was up 1.22 percent to 1002.81 points, led by gains from Chevron, up 2-1/8 to 93-13/16.

--

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000614/n141611.html

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), June 14, 2000

Answers

Posted At: 6/13/00 1:48:37 pm From IP: Just received this email from noted oil expert Colin Campbell and wanted to repost it here.

"The short answer is that they are already running flat out and physically cannot increase production."

DS

http://pub5.ezboard.com/fyourdontimebomb2000.showMessage?topicID=5724. topic&index=18

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), June 14, 2000.


Global reserve growth nearly equals undiscovered resources

USGS Director Charles (Chip) Groat announced the release of U.S. Geological Survey World Petroleum Assessment 2000-Description and Results, USGS Digital Data Series


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 13 JUNE 2000

Contact: Carolyn Bell cbell@usgs.gov 703-648-4463 United States Geological Survey USGS releases World Petroleum Assessment 2000

Global reserve growth nearly equals undiscovered resources

USGS Director Charles (Chip) Groat announced the release of U.S. Geological Survey World Petroleum Assessment 2000-Description and Results, USGS Digital Data Series - DDS-60. These estimates of the volume of oil and gas, exclusive of the U.S., are those that may be added to the world's reserves in the next 30 years. Overall there is a 20 percent increase in undiscovered oil and a slight decrease in undiscovered natural gas. The big news is that potential additions to reserves from reserve growth are nearly as large as the estimated undiscovered resource volumes.

"The USGS undertook this world petroleum assessment to provide impartial, scientifically based petroleum-resource information essential to the economic and strategic security of the United States," Groat said. "The results have important implications for energy prices, policy, security, and the global resource balance and will provide a foundation for additional geologic, economic, geopolitical, and environmental studies." The assessment is organized into a four CD-ROM set. The first three CD-ROM's present detailed results of the assessment as well as extensive documentation of the methodology used. The final CD-ROM contains additional archival information helpful for those who wish to do further analysis of their own. Lastly, they contain brief summaries of the assessment units that are identified in the eight regions, including descriptions of general geology, source rocks, petroleum maturation and migration, reservoir rocks, traps and seals, and a listing of key references. The data are available on the web at http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/ . This release of the complete report and supporting documentation provides detailed results for 246 geologically based assessment units that are significant on a world scale in terms of known petroleum volumes, geologic potential for new petroleum discoveries, and political or societal importance. For each assessment unit, allocations of undiscovered resources were made to the countries, geologic provinces, regions, and offshore areas involved. From these allocated portions, aggregations of estimates were made for other entities such as countries in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD). The United States was not reassessed in this study; estimates previously made by the USGS in 1995 and the Minerals Management Service in 1996 were used for comparative purposes. The USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000 has benefited from information and support received from 35 industry, academic, and government agency members of the World Energy Consortium. With the evolution of technology and new understandings of petroleum systems, this report is the first of its kind to provide a rigorous geologic foundation for estimating undiscovered energy resources for the world. As the nation's largest water, earth and biological science, and civilian mapping agency, the USGS works in cooperation with more than 2,000 organizations across the country to provide reliable, impartial scientific information to resource managers, planners, and other customers. This information is gathered in every state by USGS scientists to minimize the loss of life and property from natural disasters, contribute to the sound conservation and the economic and physical development of the nation's natural resources, and enhance the quality of life by monitoring water, biological, energy, and mineral resources. ### In-depth information about USGS programs may be found on the USGS home page at http://www.usgs.gov . To receive the latest USGS news releases automatically by e-mail, send a request to listproc@listserver.usgs.gov .

-- Anon (anon@anon.anon), June 14, 2000.


CPR IS AN IDIOT!!

-- (he@was.WRONG!!), June 14, 2000.

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