Oak Ridge
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Indiana
Posts: 6168 |
This is for all of the folk that really think that the President of the United states contols the price of gas. Crude oil is a commodity and is traded like a commodity...just like Corn. It is bought and sold on the open market all over the world. The big difference is that the fluctation is seen at the gas pump in near record fashion.....the price of your corn flakes does not change because the price of corn rises and falls....
The rich are getting richer...it's not just the oil companies. They are paying higher prices and they regulate the price of refined fuels according to the future price of oil......
Crude oil prices in London traded higher as participants worry about oil supplies after Tropical Storm Chris regained strength Friday.
The market was also watching the strong verbal tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Hezbollah, noted one trader. At 1103 GMT, the front-month September Brent contract on London's ICE Futures exchange was up 48 cents at $77.04 a barrel.
The front-month September crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading 14 cents higher at $75.63/bbl. The ICE's gasoil contract for August delivery was up $9 at $657.25 a metric ton, while Nymex gasoline for September delivery was down 0.04 cents at $2.2964 a gallon.
Oil prices were higher as the National Hurricane Center in the U.S. said a tropical storm watch for Chris remained in effect, meaning tropical storm conditions are possible within the next 36 hours.
Chris was headed for the Turks and Caicos Friday as it pushed across the eastern Caribbean, scattering rain over Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands but no longer posing a hurricane threat to the region.
"The storm is expected to hit the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the week, which will compel traders to go long before they leave their desks Friday," a trader said. Meanwhile, escalating Middle Eastern tensions continued to underpin higher oil prices. Participants note the recent strong verbal war between Israel and Hezbollah is a major concern for the oil market.
Hezbollah's leader Thursday threatened to send rockets into Tel Aviv if Beirut was attacked, but offered a ceasefire in the air war, pledging to halt rocket attacks if Israel stops airstrikes. "You attack our cities, villages, civilians and our capital. We will react.
Anytime you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city," Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, prime leader of Hezbollah, said in a taped television speech. Meanwhile, Israel's warplanes attacked Beirut's southern suburbs and other parts of Lebanon early Friday.
"This is going to get worse, which gives another reason to squeeze the shorts in the market," one broker said.
However, Sucden Commodities broker said the U.K., U.S. and France will push for a U.N. resolution calling for a ceasefire within a week and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday he expects there could be a ceasefire even sooner than that.
The more than three week-old Israel-Hezbollah fight has led to the death of more than 900 people in Lebanon. In other developments, three Filipino oil workers were kidnapped in southern Nigeria's oil-rich delta early Friday, police said.
Kidnappings and oil-related attacks have become common in the West African country's southern delta region, where oil has caused strife between multinational companies and local communities.
Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and a major supplier to the U.S. "Thankfully they tend to release them unharmed and I guess that is the reason the market is not responding to this bullish news," a London based trader said.
In terms of technicals, the break out of Thursday's September ICE Brent crude oil inside-day pattern Friday will probably determine the direction of the oil price in the days to come, said Axel Rudolph, Dow Jones' Chief Technical Analyst for Europe. "If the futures retest and fall beyond $76.02, Thursday's intraday low, they should head toward the $75.54-to-$75.41 support zone," he said.
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08-04-2006 02:47 AM
