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Oct 19 2012

OIL FUTURES: Crude Trades Sideways in Asia; Macro Concerns Weigh

Friday, Oct 19, 2012

   By Eric Yep 

Crude-oil prices moved in a narrow range in Asian trade Friday as investors weighed the impact of an outage at a North American oil pipeline against slowing global demand.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in November traded at $92.09 a barrel at 0509 GMT, down $0.01 in the Globex electronic session. December Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.03 to $112.45 a barrel.

On Thursday, TransCanada Corp. (TRP) said its Keystone pipeline, which takes oil from Western Canada to the U.S., will be down for three days to address an "anomaly" found in Missouri.

Supply isn't expected to be appreciably curtailed, however, energy consulting firm Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note, adding that demand in Europe is thin, which is weakening Brent prices ahead of an infusion of fresh barrels from the North Sea Buzzard field.

Extended maintenance at Buzzard has been supporting Brent oil prices for the last few weeks.

Macroeconomic concerns are also weighing on oil prices, with the latest bearish data point being China's slowest gross domestic product growth in more than three years.

But this was balanced by fundamentals, with Chinese refineries processing a record amount of crude in September, at 38.76 million metric tons, up 7.0% from a year earlier, according to government data Thursday.

China's implied oil demand picked up sharply in September, marking the strongest reading on record on the back of normalization of net product imports and a strong rebound in refinery runs, as margins rose after fuel price increases, Barclays analysts said in a note.

But the bank also said it expected Chinese growth to "normalise" in the fourth quarter rather than rebound.

The U.S. elections will be key to any major changes in oil prices, Barclays said.

Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for November--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 87 points to $2.7538 a gallon, while November heating oil traded at $3.1988, 122 points higher.

ICE gasoil for November changed hands at $999.25 a metric ton, up $2.75 from Thursday's settlement.

Write to Eric Yep at eric.yep@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 19, 2012 03:13 ET (07:13 GMT)


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