WTI $93.82 +1.10, Brent $111.45 +1.76, Diff $17.63 -23c, NG $3.99 +3c

 

Oil Price

The oil price is again relatively stable after Chinese manufacturing growth reached an 18 month high this morning. Also figures from the EIA showed operable refinery capacity at 89.4% picking up after recently having fallen.

Opec meet tomorrow in Vienna and as usual there have been a number of Ministers making comments before the gathering. The only important comments however were from the Saudis who said that the market was ‘well supplied and there was no need to cut production to support prices’. Expect a renewal of the 30m b/d target for the first half of 2014.

Hess

Hess has sold a package of Indonesian assets for $1.3bn as part of its re-evaluation of its current portfolio.

BP

BP has won the latest Appeal Court ruling stopping payments to claimants who did not suffer loss or property damage because of the Macondo oil spill, all pending appeal of course.

Petrofac

The company has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Taleveras and the NPDC whereby PFC and Taleveras provide capacity and capability-building support to the NPDC. For use on offshore licence OML 119 the options include funding, technical support, training and asset management of any sort of contract.

Wood Group

Wood has won an order from Hess to provide FEED services for the Stampede tension leg platform in the Green Canyon block in the Gulf of Mexico.

And finally…

In the football Palace host the happy Hammers tonight, a game they really need to win, I suppose that with Tony Pulis in charge they have a better chance of winning but will do it ugly, bad news for season ticket holders.

Steve Cotterill takes over as Bristol City boss, I knew Steve when he was hoping to manage Southampton some years ago and I rate him very highly. Also former Villa manager John Gregory has taken over at Crawley town………..

In rugby, Mike Phillips stays in France and signs for Racing Metro, look forward to his first training session……….

And a 5 year old mare, Dancing Rain, has been bought in Newmarket for £4m, and why you ask? Well Dancing Rain is only in foal to the mighty Frankel……………………

And how many times do NatWest have to let the IT system crash, ruining life for its customers before they do something about it………………………..?