Crude shoots up

Prices rise as International Energy Agency increases the 2009 global demand forecast

Oil prices ended substantially higher on Thursday, 11 June, 2009. Price rose today after International Energy Agency increased the 2009 global demand forecast for oil for the first time in ten months. Prices also rose today after energy department reported sudden draw in crude inventories for last week yesterday.

On Thursday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for July delivery closed at $72.68/barrel (higher by $1.35 or 1.9%). Last week, crude ended higher by 3.2%.

Crude ended the month of May, 2009, higher by 30%. This was the largest month gain for crude in almost a decade. Prior to May, crude ended April and March, 2009 higher by 2.9% and 10.9% respectively. It rallied 11.3% in the first quarter. Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 50% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 43.9%.

In a monthly report released on Thursday, the IEA, an energy advisor to 28 developed countries, increased its global oil demand estimate for this year by 120,000 barrels a day to 83.3 million barrels a day.

Yesterday, the EIA had reported that crude inventories fell by 4.4 million barrels in the week ended 5 June, 2009. Refineries operated at 85.9% of their operable capacity last week, slightly lower than a week ago. EIA also reported that crude imports fell 676,000 barrels a day from the previous week, while gasoline demand over the past four weeks rose 0.4% from the same period last year. Meanwhile, gasoline inventories fell 1.6 million barrels, and distillate stockpiles declined 300,000 barrels.

Earlier this week, the Energy Information Administration raised its outlook for this year's crude-oil and gasoline prices. The body said that crude prices are expected to average $58.70 a barrel this year. That's up from the $52 a barrel the EIA had forecast a month ago. It also raised the outlook for next year's crude price to $67.42 from $58. The EIA also said regular gasoline prices are expected to average close to $2.70 a gallon in July. The average regular gasoline price averaged across the full year is expected to be $2.33 a gallon.

Also at the Nymex on Thursday, July reformulated gasoline rose 4.96 cents, or 2.5%, to $2.0649 a gallon and July heating oil gained 2.08 cents, or 1.1%, to $1.8534 a gallon.

July natural gas rallied 22.5 cents, or 6.1%, to $3.933 per million British thermal units. It rallied to $4.067 earlier. EIA reported today that U.S. inventories rose 106 billion cubic feet in the week ended 5 June, 2009. At 2,443 billion cubic feet, stocks were 568 billion cubic feet higher than last year at this time and 438 billion cubic feet above the five-year average.

Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.

At the MCX, crude oil for June delivery closed at Rs 3,456/barrel, higher by Rs 88 (2.6%) against previous day's close. Natural gas for June delivery closed at Rs 187.8/mmbtu, higher by Rs 11.7/mmbtu (6.6%).