Breaking News Stories
These are news stories breaking after the publishing of this Word
from.– Oil Crisis...is
the world about to be shocked
Crude oil prices jump
to one-month high
China View
NEW YORK, Sept. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Crude oil prices in New York rose to
their one-month high Monday after OAO Yukos Oil Co. said it would halt
oil shipments to China while many traders concerned about a sharp
decline in crude inventory.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light crude for October delivery
rose 76 cents to settle at 46.35 dollars a barrel, meanwhile, on
London's International Petroleum Exchange, the November Brent crude-oil
futures contract climbed 46 cents to close at 42.91 dollars a barrel.
On Monday, oil markets were buoyed by Russian oil giant Yukos'
announcement that it would halt roughly 100.000 barrels per day of oil
exports to the Chinese National Petroleum Corp. because it couldn't
afford to pay the rail-transport expenses. While the export reduction
was tiny and could easily be replaced by another Russian company, the
latest development was having a psychological impact on global oil
markets, which had been strained by strong demand amid tight supplies.
Meanwhile, analysts expected US government oil inventory data, to be
released Wednesday, to show sharp declines for the second week in a row
due to Hurricane Ivan. While some workers who had been evacuated from
oil production platforms and refineries in and around the Gulf of Mexico
last week were returning to work, the markets were uncertain about how
long it would take for output and shipments to resume to normal levels.
As of Monday, daily oil production in the Gulf was still 41 percent
below normal and natural gas production was down by 24 percent.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) last week
raised its output targets by 1 million barrels a day to 27 million
barrels per day in an effort to depress global oil prices. But the
markets discounted the move as a symbolic gesture.
Analysts said given the rising global demand, the oil prices couldn't
drop below 40 dollars per barrel for any sustained length of time until
next spring. They said the amount of surplus production capacity
worldwide was about only 1 percent of total demand of oil.
|