WTI $94.08 +55c ; Brent $104.31 +25c ; Natural Gas $3.10-3c
Good morning
Modest gains for the oil price as the slight geo-political strains are showing, Kazaks are still restless and there is an upcoming meeting led by the US to try and beef up the sanctions on Iran. Better news from the Eurozone as members of the common currency pledged 150bn euros to the IMF, I bet they didn’t think they would be doing that when they joined the land of milk and honey! As non-members of the Euro, the UK are not involved but can donate if they decide it is appropriate, in this case lets pay the Christmas bills off first.
Weekly gasoline and diesel prices have fallen again by 5.7 cents and 6.6 cents respectively, the fall is now cumulatively beginning to count, gasoline is now $3.23 a gallon and diesel $3.83 but those numbers are still above this time last year, diesel by as much as 58 cents. As its Christmas I am adding a pretty picture from the EIA which shows the split of contents for a gallon of gasoline and diesel, over here we can only weep at what ours would be!
In company news ConocoPhillips have been given approval to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska which has taken some considerable time and after many objections were overcome.
Repsol has formed a joint venture with Alliance Oil, an independent oil company quoted in Stockholm but invested in Russia and Kazakhstan, which will have $840m in assets with Repsol providing the cash element. Assets in the JV will then be existing Russian oil and gas fields as well as acquisitions to be made with the cash element, good news for Repsol as it gives them a Russian asset base at a stroke.
BP are in Angola again and Bob Dudley has met with the Vice President, apparently ready to sign deals for acreage in the Kwanza basin, this ideally complements BP’s substantial operation in the deep-water area. I will be returning to BP later in the week as we have a light-hearted look at the year that was but for the time being its worth looking at the chart, we remain bullish but I wouldn’t want to see the stock fall much further and definitely not below 420p.
BP 1 Year chart
Elsewhere, Wood Group has won a contract to build the topsides for Anadarko’s latest Gulf of Mexico platform, 7100 feet of water depth.
Gulf Keystone has had a quieter morning after yesterday’s shenanigans with the announcement that they are spudding Shaikan-6 in Kurdistan.
Victoria Oil & Gas has kept its promise and has delivered first commercial gas on schedule from the Logbaba project in Douala, Cameroon.
Finally, Northern are now analysing the test samples from the Ottoland re-test, Gold Oil is encouraged by its 3D seismic offshore Peru, Magnolia has restated its admission document information and Sound Oil are about to spud in Indonesia.
And finally a headline which can only be seen to be believed, ‘Piers Morgan to appear before Leveson media ethics enquiry’ could lead to a whole host of jokes and comments but as I prefer turkey to prison food I will leave it untouched!
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