WTI $45.77 +57c, Brent $49.99 +47c, Diff $4.25 -10c, NG $2.81 +6c

Oil price

A very quiet day all round today, hope for another tomorrow as there will likely be no blog as I will be in the Nottingham office…

Crude rallied a bit yesterday, it might have been more but for the strong dollar, Fed officials are saying that subject to half decent Non-farm-payroll numbers on Friday, rates will rise in September. The API inventory stats came out after the close, they showed a draw of 2.4m barrels which was higher than the 1.5m barrel whisper. This  included a  504/- fall at Cushing which helped and crude prices are up around 50 cents this morning. For the next few days and weeks we will have to watch things very carefully, on the charts the oil price is looking down at the February lows, bounce of them and it looks good, fall through them and chartists will be in tears.

Soco International

Interims from Soco this morning and not much to report, production in the period was 11,856 boe/d and guidance for the second half is raised slightly to 11-12/- boe/d. The H5 development is running ahead of schedule and should produce first oil ‘imminently’, previously it was due in September/October. Soco is in a strong position financially if not morally, with good flexibility and have signed an MOU with SOVICO and PetroVietnam for potential exploration in blocks 125 and 126.

Peter Whitbread

It has been brought to my attention by Frank Nelson that Peter Whitbread has recently passed away. Peter returned to Lamprell in 2012 as part of the rescue team of which Frank was the CFO and himself the CEO. A few of us remember Peter from a trip to Dubai in which he showed off Lamprell with obvious pride even though on the return journey he informed us that he wouldnt be seeing us as he would be ‘turning left’ on entry to the aircraft!

And finally…

It looks like Lord Coe and his mates in the hierarchy of athletics are not best pleased with The Sunday Times although I expect it will be mandatory reading in weeks to come if the Lance Armstrong issue was anything to go by…

Celtic travel to FK Qarabag tonight 1-0 up from the first leg in the Champions League qualifiers…

And a reader asks me to mention that ten years after he left the club, Bobby Zamora has re-signed with Brighton and Hove Albion. Now, how does that song go? To tune of Amore by Dean Martin I think. If you’re sitting in row Z and the ball hits your head, it’s Zamora….

And back to the swimming as they say, James Guy won a gold last night in thew 200m freestyle event.