WTI  $97.35 +$1.77, Brent $101.95 -6c, Diff $4.60 -$1.83, NG $3.78 -13c

Oil price

Its the silly season alright and with lots of people away its not easy finding much to get ones teeth into. The oil price is without doubt under pressure indicated by the Brent contango and by fairly random movements dictated by news such as the Ukraine attack on a Russian convoy on Friday night. Brent had fallen sharply with the new contract on Thursday rallied on Friday and drifted off to below $102 last night. Today it is back at $102.46 but the traders tell me that any strength is mainly bear closing. Libya is without doubt increasing exports quite sharply adding to the Atlantic glut whilst Opec is well over 30m b/d. The link at the bottom of the blog is for an interview I did with TipTV, in it I chat about the oil price.

Sometimes differing organisations produce different statistics based on their own predilections,  recently the UK’s OBR said that there was £62bn of oil revenues due from the North Sea by 2041 but the report out today by N-56, a pro-yes vote business organisation has come up with a number of £365bn, and the moon is made out of green cheese….

Sundry news

The Daily Telegraph is reworking the Rosneft running out of money story suggesting that it has ‘asked the Government for 1.5bn roubles (£25bn) of state aid’ as it is locked out of international credit markets. Maybe Bo Diddeley could step up to the mark and lend Igor a few roubles, after all they are such good friends nowadays…

Genel has said that production at Taq Taq will ramp up to 140/- b/d ‘by the end of this month’ and with production elsewhere in Kurdistan unaffected by the local turmoil, is ironically seeing revenues rise. The company is also buying shares back in but not in any substantial numbers.

Salamander has announced that the North Kendang-2 exploration well is dry despite encountering two hydrocarbon bearing intervals. The costs of this well are being paid for by the insurance after the NK-1 well control incident. I am still hearing interesting industry gossip about the sale procedure, looks like an episode of deal or no deal…

Fastnet has released results for the year to end March which as ever tell us nothing, going forwards there is much to look forward to as the statement indicates that farm-out activity is imminent in both onshore |Morocco and in Ireland. The FA-1 dry hole offshore Morocco was the big disappointment but there is still room for encouragement and they are carried in a smart deal, with cash of $20m and corporate activity evident I feel that in the medium term Fastnet looks very attractive.

And it looks like Apache has made a major oil discovery on its Phoenix South-1 well offshore Western Australia…

I mentioned on Friday and at the top that I did an interview with TipTV in which I discussed the oil price, I also looked at Egdon and Alkane as well as Faroe and a brief comment on President Energy. The link is on the website and can be found on

http://www.tiptv.co.uk/archives/tip-tv-highlight-14-08-2014/

And finally…

Good news around over the weekend in a number of sporting achievements, the best being winning the Rugby World Cup by the England women’s rugby team.

In athletics, the GB team made their best ever haul of gold medals and finished top of the medal table.

And of course the England cricket team ended the series against India with another win, coming out 3-1 winners having been 0-1 down after the Lords shambles. No more tests until Antigua next April so time to concentrate on the one day stuff ahead of the World Cup…

Football did indeed appear with the Premiership up and running, still seems too early to me and obviously for Mr van Gaal as the new system is taking a while to get used to. All the top clubs won and Chelsea kick off tonight at Burnley.

Finally I should mention that on Saturday we were honoured to be guests of the delightful Debbie and Jonathan Gregory at Lords cricket ground where the Lords Taverners took on the Bunburys in a charity match. Both these organisations raise huge amounts of money for childrens  charities and famous personalities and top sportsmen gave their time to make a fantastic day for everybody, although with 17 fielders taking to the field the Bunburys were a touch over enthusiastic!