WTI $103.12 73c, Brent $108.03 +70c, Diff $4.91 +$2.00, NG $3.76 -1c

Oil price

A very short blog today, there is virtually nothing going on in either the oil or the equity markets. I am off to see Chariot amongst others and I have a backlog of two or three companies to write about in next few days.

The oil price has rallied for two reasons, firstly the factory manufacturing data that came out of China last night was much better in July than analysts had expected and HSBC reported growth at the fastest pace for 18 months. Secondly the EIA inventory stats showed a crude draw of 4 million barrels, much higher than the API numbers on Tuesday but interestingly the products gained around 5m barrels of inventory which is a bit worrying.

Northern Petroleum

Two things from Northern today, they have been awarded two permits in Italy, one onshore in the Po Valley and one offshore in the Sicily channel. They have also finally sold their UK assets to UKOG for £1.5m.

BG Group

The Times is apparently reporting that BG has sold a  chunk of its North Sea assets for something around $1bn. Quite possible as everything is for sale but this is small beer, much bigger transactions are needed to move the needle I suspect.

And finally…

The Commonwealth Games were opened in Glasgow last night and 11 days of competition commence this morning. Interesting to see a few famous names competing for their countries over the next few days.

Louis van Gaal took his Man U team to play LA Galaxy last night and with a new formation and some new players won 7-0 but hey, its only a friendly!

Much more tomorrow I hope………..