fireworksWTI $94.46 -15c, Brent $105.52 -18c, B/WTI Diff – $11.06 +8c, Natural Gas $3.46 -6c

Good morning

Another fairly quiet morning, rumours doing the rounds that the Friday jobs number in the US will be poor and thus confirming my view that tapering is for springtime at the earliest.

Oil Price

The oil price remains under pressure, last night Brent troughed at $105.13 but rallied with the greenback and after reports of heavy fighting in Tripoli last night. The ICE reported yesterday that hedge funds continue to cut their exposure to crude oil, it’s as low as it has been for some months.

API stats tonight and the analysts’ consensus is for a build of 1.8m barrels…………………………..

Anadarko

Blog fave Anadarko had 3rd quarter numbers last night and certainly didn’t let the side down with revenue up 16% at $3.85bn and net of impairments etc $182m. US onshore gave them a big boost especially in the Wattenberg field in Colorado as well as the Eagle Ford in Texas. Anadarko also increased its stake in Chevrons Coronado discovery in the Gulf of Mexico and has taken over as operator.

Anadarko 1 Year chart what a beauty……………..

Anadarko 1 Year chart

Anadarko 1 Year chart

Wood Group

Wood has won another extension from Chevron in the North Sea, this time a one year add for work on the Alba and Captain fields. WG PSN carries out engineering and construction services and floating storage at Alba and two platforms and FPSO’s on the Captain field. This is good repeat work for Wood who have worked on these fields for Chevron for over ten years.

Wood Group lost some of their premium rating at the time of the profit warning in late August, the pre-close trading statement is due on the 12th December so I would guess that as we close in on that statement it is possible that in the absence of comfort from the management between now and then the market may remain cautious .

Wood Group 1 Year chart

Wood Group 1 Year chart

Caza Oil & Gas

Caza has closed a US$4.34m convertible unsecured loan with Yorkville Advisors. This consists of US$3.5m of new credit and US$0.84m of funds which will repay amounts outstanding from the prior Yorkville Loan. The loan will mature in 2 years (extendable to 3 years by Yorkville) and interest is payable in Common Shares at 8% pa.

This loan will provide the company with greater flexibility as it pursues a new drilling campaign in the Bone Spring Play. The current Apollo facility does not provide capital for leasing, so the new funds will allow Caza to participate in upcoming lease sales and expand its prospect portfolio going forward. For the exposure Caza offers to the Bone Springs play Caza looks extraordinarily cheap at the moment, I think investment at these levels will be rewarded at some stage down the line.

Caza Oil & Gas 1 Year chart

Caza Oil & Gas 1 Year chart

Cuadrilla/Centrica etc……..

I understand that this afternoon Francis Egan is due to appear in front of the House of Lords economic committee to answer questions on shale gas economics………….

And Sam Laidlaw, CEO of Centrica has decided to forgo his bonus as he believes that there is a ‘need for leadership in setting pay at senior levels’. What a guy, maybe we should follow suit……

Follow up from yesterday……………

Weir Group did bounce after falling 8% at one stage and I suspect I was right in thinking that the bears were closing their positions, the news wasn’t all that bad and as the shares headed down towards the very strong support level of 2037p the finance director over at GE in the states will be sharpening his pencil.

President rose 16% in the end and don’t think you’ve missed it, there’s plenty more to come in this little beauty………

And finally…

To Exeter where jockey AP McCoy is riding this afternoon. With two winners yesterday at Kempton he has now got 3,998 so only two to go for the amazing figure of 4,000 jump racing wins.

To the flat where the Melbourne Cup was run overnight and not without British influence as the winner, Fiorente used to be trained by Sir Michael Stoute and the 2nd and 3rd were both British trained.

Champions league action tonight, Man Who go to Real Sociedad and the noisy neighbours host CSKA Moscow and their ‘ lovely’ fans……………..some of whom were ejected from an Easyjet flight from Moscow after it diverted to Denmark to drop off drunken Moscow fans……….

In Australia England are preparing to take on Australia ‘A’ tonight as the Ashes tour gets well under way, nice to see Shane Warne spicing things up a bit………

American Football update as promised – Jets beat the Saints, Washington Redskins win in overtime, Eagles smash the Raiders, Patriots beat the Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills to go 9-0 whilst Nick Foles threw for 7 touchdowns for the Philadelphia Eagles, seriously impressive……..