WTI $49.45 -$1.36, Brent $58.90 -$1.32, Diff $9.45 -43c, NG $2.88 -7c

Oil price

Another fairly short blog today as company news is a bit thin on the ground, this is about to change with the results season almost upon us. Petrofac tomorrow and Premier on Thursday will see me up and about early to attend meetings, for the former, btw, its almost a Capital Markets Day  with a full show of talent on offer from Ayman down.

An emergency Opec meeting?

The oil price weakened again fairly predictably but not without a short and sharp rally following posting of an interview by the FT with the Nigerian Oil Minister who it should be remembered is the President of Opec. The market ran away with the story that she had called for an emergency Opec meeting, something that even if it had been even remotely possible should have been immediately discounted as the Saudi ‘hard yards’ have not been completed yet. What she actually did was to ‘raise the possibility’ of having to call one should oil prices fall further, again, you dont give up on your strategy just when the opposition are capitulating… Having had its rally the market realised the error of its ways and sold off again.

The refining strike in the US continues to pick up as I mentioned yesterday, this morning the FT puts the figure of refining capacity off stream as 20%, a figure that will surely grow and upset normal calculations. For what its worth the US retail gasoline stats were out last night and showed yet further price rises, remember $2.04 per gallon nationally only recently? Well its now $2.33, up another 5.8c on the week as a combination of better demand and the strike take their toll.

Bowleven-Presidential Decree Gazetted…

Up in the Edinburgh offices of Bowleven there are now only 15 days to go until the money comes in from the Etinde farm-out to LUKOIL and NewAge. Readers will know that I consider this to be a very good milestone for BLVN and opens up a range of possibilities for the company in Cameroon some of which I mentioned in my note on VOG. Watch this space…

Sundry

A couple of companies I dont cover have announcements today, LGO has completed an equity raise and oil swap agreement bringing in new shareholders and BNP Paribas to the fray…

Wentworth whom I have also to meet,(so far only cancelled meetings with the company), have announced that its Kifaru-1 onshore Mozambique well is a duster, usual chat about assessing info but that completes obligations.

And finally…

Tonight in the Champions League Barcelona visit the Noisy Neighbours which should be really worth watching…

The Cricket World Cup warmed up a bit today by the Windies, or should I say by Chris Gayle who has scored the CWC’s first ever double century ending up getting out to the last ball of the innings for 215…In reply the Banga’s dont look like they will chase 375 odd…

And it is announced that the 2022 World Cup to be held in Qatar will happen in November, continuing the farce of epic proportions that this competition has become. Will someone please rid us of this troublesome priest?