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Crude oil surges above 48 end of september { September 22 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/bef1e9fc-0c81-11d9-b543-00000e2511c8.htmlhttp://news.ft.com/cms/s/bef1e9fc-0c81-11d9-b543-00000e2511c8.html
Crude oil surges above $48 a barrel
By Kevin Morrison in London
Published: September 22 2004 11:37 | Last updated: September 22 2004 20:12
Crude futures jumped to within $1 of the record highs touched last month following another hurricane-affected week for US supplies on both imports and domestic production.
November Nymex WTI leapt as high as $48.40 a barrel in early afternoon New York trade, before easing slightly to $48.35 a gain of $1.59 on the day. The intra-day peak was its highest since touching $49.40 on August 20, which in turn is a record since crude futures began trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 1983. It was also a record in nominal terms.
The latest weekly inventory also sent the benchmark Brent crude futures contract sharply higher. November Brent futures were $1.54 stronger at $44.93 a barrel, a shade below its intra-day peak on Tuesday of $45.07, and within a whisker of its record of $45.15 touched last month.
Concerns about US oil supplies over winter, which is seasonally the strongest demand period, helped send US heating oil futures to a record high. Nymex heating oil futures peaked at $1.3460 a gallon, up more than 4 cents. This price equates to more than $55 a barrel.
US commercial crude inventories dropped 9.1m barrels to 269.5 million in the week ended September 17, bringing them to the lowest level since early February and well-below the average range for this time of year, said the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the US energy department.
The latest fall represents the eighth successive decline causing US commercial crude stockpiles to fall close to the 250-year lows touched in January.
The fall reflected interruption to domestic crude production from Hurricane Ivan. The adverse weather also affected oil tanker traffic to the Gulf of Mexico coastline. The US is the third largest oil producer in the world and the largest oil importer.
The US-based Minerals Management Service said as of Tuesday, the effects of Ivan had cut 8.5m barrels of oil production from the region and left producers of crude there at about 60 per cent of their 1.7m barrels per day of capacity.
The EIA said oil imports dropped almost 1.5m b/d to 8.43m b/d. It said gasoline stocks fell 2.8m barrels to 199.7m and distillate stocks fell 1.5m barrels to 126.8m barrels.
The effect of the hurricane was also felt on refineries with refining utilisation rates declining 7.6 percentage points to 88.1 per cent of capacity.
Gold prices dropped yesterday following a rise in the US dollar after the Federal Reserve increased interest rates on Tuesday. Bullion was quoted at $406.35/$407.10 a troy ounce in late London trade, compared with the late quote of $409.15/$409/90 in New York in the pervious session.
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