Oil Is Staying High

International Energy Agency's monthly report said that consumers should not expect relief from the present sky-high oil prices. Will oil price continue to soar?

That means the balance of growth has to come from OPEC, which has been unable and/or unwilling to increase capacity fast enough in recent years to keep up with increases in demand. In fact, OPEC's spare capacity—the extra crude it could produce if necessary—has dwindled back below 2 million barrels per day for the first time since the third quarter of 2006, the IEA says.

That will likely make the hair-trigger markets even more sensitive to potential outages that could be caused by hurricanes on the U.S. or Mexican Gulf Coast, or political tensions from Iran to Nigeria. "Higher prices are needed to choke off demand to balance the market," the IEA said. On cue, U.S. crude, which had declined on June 9 following the June 6 record of $139.12, rose by 2.26%, to $137.00 per barrel, Reuters reported.

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Crude Oil Price Drops To Less Than $129

After reaching the so called "peak oil" last few days, as oil price recorded a new high price of more than $135 per barrel, crude oil price has dropped of more than $6 per barrel, making it now at less than $129 per barrel.

"People are just increasingly concerned about the inflation risk picking up and the U.S. economy deteriorating," said Andrea Williams, head of European equities at Royal London Asset Management.

Technology shares had modest gains on Wall Street and the Nasdaq composite was in positive territory, while the blue-chip Dow industrials and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 Index were little changed.

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$200 A Barrel Is Possible, Oil Producers Say

Oil price is at above $135 per barrel in early trading today, which escalates tensions and fears over supplies. The price becomes double as last year's price. Meanwhile, oil producers predicted that oil price may end up $200 per barrel this year. how would OPEC react on this issue?

The US has repeatedly called for oil-producing countries to raise output to calm the market but producers blame speculators and the weakness of the dollar for high prices, rather than supply constraints.

Abdullah al-Badri, Opec secretary general, said the cartel saw no problems with the fundamentals of oil supply and demand. "Even if we increase output tomorrow, the prices will not come down."

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Oil Price Retreats From $126/Barrel

From last week $126.96 a barrel due to weak dollar, oil price is getting its way down, this time, is due to a strong dollar.

The advance at the end of last week came after Colombia said it recovered documents from a slain guerrilla that indicate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered assistance to Colombian rebels. Some U.S. lawmakers have cited the documents to argue that the White House should add Venezuela to a list of state terror sponsors that includes North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba.

"We see this as having continued upward pressure on the demand for oil world wide", cited a senior trader at Global Options, one of the largest commodities traders.

Such a move would most likely spur Venezuela to cut off oil exports to the U.S., but analysts believe such a provocative diplomatic step is unlikely.

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Oil Market Brings No Good News At All

What do you expect from the oil market? Are you expecting oil price to at least go down a little bit? Last week yes, it fell down a bit lower. But now, oil price becomes more unaffordable as it already hits near $123 per barrel. What is happening to our oil management sector? the OPEC? Isn't it time to act?

Separately, the U.S. government again raised its short-term price forecasts for crude oil and gasoline. The Energy Department now expects average monthly gasoline prices should peak at $3.73 a gallon in June, while regular-grade gasoline is expected to average $3.52 a gallon this year.

At the pump, the national average price of a gallon of regular gas slipped 0.1 cent overnight to $3.61, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

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Oil Price Fall May Not Last?

After weeks or even months of shocking oil price increase, oil price has slowly stepped down. Yet, there is still a threat that the current oil price may not last for good. Find out.

Crude oil prices were up over $117 a barrel on Monday morning amid supply concerns fueled by an attack on a Nigerian oil installation. The rise was tempered by a slightly stronger dollar; the dollar's weakness has pushed crude prices higher this year as investors look to commodities as a hedge against inflation.

As the summer driving season approaches, refiners need to recover how much they make per gallon in order to restore some capacity that they have idled, Lundberg said. Also, refiners overseas could be attracted to a higher U.S. gas price "and send over those extra barrels," increasing supply to meet the U.S. demand, she said.

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Oil Price Watch: Oil Rose Above $117 A Barrel

As expected, oil prices have never been declined from its high price, yet it has been increasing as the US markets remained at a gloomy situation. Recently, just this day, oil is recorded at $117 above per barrel.

Also over the weekend, Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted Saturday as saying crude oil prices at $115 a barrel are too low, and that oil must "discover its real value."

"The oil price of $115 a barrel in today's global markets is a deceiving figure. Oil is a strategic commodity that needs to discover its real value," the Web site of Iran's state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

The Iranian president made the remarks during a visit to an oil and gas exhibition in Tehran late Friday.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures were flat at $3.2923 a gallon while gasoline prices fell 0.18 cent to $2.9875 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 1.3 cent to $10.60 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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Refocus on Healthy Fundamentals, says OPEC to Oil Market

Refocus on healthy fundamentals. This was the OPEC request to oil market as the latter wanted to fix the volatile global oil market.




"It is a basic substitution of rising assets for those in decline," OPEC said of the sharp slide in the dollar, which has spurred many investors into the oil market. "This has significantly influenced the short-term oil price, and this dynamic has also lifted the prices of other commodities." Globally, crude oil is traded in dollars.


"OPEC appreciates how financial markets work, but it is important to keep an eye on the impacts to the oil market of this type of speculation, as it can create a climate of nervousness and uncertainty," the editorial said.

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ON HIGH OIL PRICE: Demad for Natural Gas May turn Global

As of today, there are reports that oil price rises at $112 per barrel and will continue rising. Reasons for this escalating oil prices have been laid down. In fact, Oil investors have there own reasons why they are pressure to make oil price high. Because of the unstoppable rising oil price, studies are being conducted to shift on the use of natural gas. If this would materialize, natural gas might be used globally, as replacements of crude oil and other natural energy gas.

Consequently, the use of gas has been growing significantly faster than the use of oil, although not as fast as the use of coal, which is also reaching record proportions.

Gas has been the fuel of choice for investment in power generation over the past two decades in the developed world and in most emerging economies, also. Modern combined-cycle gas turbine plants are cheap and quick to build and create much less pollution than coal-fired electricity.

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