World
Petroleumworld
Bookstore
Institutional
links
OPEC
Petroleumworld
Business Partners
Blogspots
recomended
Le Blog des
Energies Nouvelles
  |
Merry Christmas !
ISSUES....
Inside, confidential and off the record
Prices up !
ENERGY PRICES ARE VERY QUIETLY HIGHER, with the cold weather and snow that bedeviled travelers all along the eastern seaboard here in the US and Canada this past weekend tending to put a bid into nat-gas, and with the OPEC meeting tomorrow tending to put almost everyone on the sidelines awaiting word from that meeting.
At this point it is reasonable to expect nothing of consequence to come from the meeting. The quota, presently set at 24.845 million bpd shall remain there, with the post-meeting communiqué almost certainly noting that the members shall expect better adherence to their respective quotas of each other, for in reality there is nothing much more that the cartel can do but that.
As noted, the OPEC meeting begins tomorrow, and the committees will begin meeting today. Ahead of the meeting, Iraq is hoping to assuage the concerns that its fellow member nations may have as Iraqi crude oil shall soon begin coming back to the market in size. Iraq’s Oil Minister, Mr. al-Sharistani, said earlier today in Luanda, Angola, where the OPEC meeting is being held, thatIraq does not expect any significant increase next year [in our crude oil production] and not even in 2011, [thus] I do not think we will be ready to start any discussions before 2011.
That last comment was, of course, regarding Iraq’s quota within OPEC, and last month Iraq produced 2.4 million barrels of crude on average each day. This is actually quite a good deal of crude oil, for at its best, in years past, Iraqi crude production approached 3.0 million bpd back in the late 80’s, before falling to less than 300,000 bpd during the 1st Gulf War. It ramped up to 2.5 million back around the turn of this century before falling back to 1.2 million bpd in ’03, and from there it has steadily moved higher, reaching last month’s 2.4 million bpd. Clearly other members of OPEC are concerned, and well they should be following the recent auctions of participations in Iraq’s southern oil fields near the Iranian border:.
Feb WTI up 7 74.77-82
Mar WTI up 7 75.58-63
Apr WTI up 16 76.34-39
May WTI up 25 77.03-08
Jun WTI up 31 77.68-73
July WTI up 36 78.27-32
OPEC Basket $70.79 12/15 *
Henry Hub Nat-gas $5.87*Editor's Note: ($71.78 12/18 )
- Dennis Gartman/ The Gartman Letter 12/ 21 / 09
- For more on interesting comments, you can subscribe to The Gartman Letter by contacting Dennis Garthman: Phone - Fax: or email : dennis@thegartmanletter
ISSUES.... 12/21/09
ISSUES.... Inside, confidential and off the record
Is an independent journalist effort from Petroleumworld, on Inside, Confidential and Off The Record Information, its views are not necessarily those of Petroleumworld - Send Us Your Issues
Legal information: Copyright/Disclaimer
Copyright© 2008 respective author or news agency. All rights reserved.
We welcome the use of Petroleumworld™ stories by anyone provided it mentions Petroleumworld.com as the source. Other stories you have to get authorization by its authors.Your feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best Viewed with IE 5.01+
Windows NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels