Oil Hits Record $100/barrel

[shetuck]

Happy New Year everybody... Reuters

Oil hits record $100

Wed Jan 2, 2008 12:58pm EST
By Richard Valdmanis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil vaulted to a record $100 a barrel on Wednesday as geopolitical turmoil, tight energy stockpiles, and a weak dollar triggered a flood of speculative buying, dealers said.

U.S. crude gained $4.02 to $100 a barrel by 12:13 p.m. EST. London Brent crude rose $3.63 to $97.48.

"It is a combination of things ... a weaker dollar -- on expectations of further interest rate cuts -- and Nigeria," said Nauman Barakat of Macquarie Futures USA.

Suspected militant attacks Tuesday in Nigeria's oil city Port Harcourt have heightened concern over the potential for further disruptions in shipments from the world's No. 8 oil exporter.

"With the military and the militant warlords engaged in a violent tit-for-tat, the risk for oil disruptions in Nigeria remains higher than in the past few months," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix.

Frequent attacks by militant groups since February 2006 have driven thousands of foreign oil workers from the oil-rich Niger Delta and cut oil exports by about 20 percent.

Oil rose nearly 58 percent last year, the biggest annual gain this decade, as the dollar fell and U.S. oil inventories sank.

cont'd...

 

[OCBucksFan]

This is probably best put in the poli forum.

 

[THEWOOD]

First of all it traded a one lot in the pit, on the screen it only got up to 99.64. Not really that big of a deal, if it can sustain a break above 100 then I would be impressed.

 

[THEWOOD]

just saw it trade 99.99 200 contracts on the screen - there is about 450 contracts sitting on the offer at 100.00, which is huge size for a bid/ask in oil

 

[shetuck]

First of all it traded a one lot in the pit, on the screen it only got up to 99.64. Not really that big of a deal, if it can sustain a break above 100 then I would be impressed.

it's just interesting when these "barriers" are broken. it's not at all significant in the big scheme of things... no more, for example, than if it gets posted or picked up at 99.99 or 100.01.

 

[shetuck]

OCBF was right...

The Economist: $100 Oil, [FONT=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, sans-serif]The price rise is more to do with politics than with peak oil[/FONT]

Peak nationalism
Oil keeps getting more expensive?but not because it is running out

Jan 3rd 2008
From The Economist print edition

NEW YEAR'S EVE has been and gone, but for oilmen, the party continues. On January 2nd, helped across the line by a New York trader eager for bragging rights, the first business day of the year, the price of their product topped $100 a barrel for the first time. Oil is now almost five times more expensive than it was at the beginning of 2002.

It would be natural to assume that ever increasing price reflects ever greater scarcity. And so it does, in a sense. Booming bits of the world, such as China, India and the Middle East have seen demand for oil grow with their economies. Meanwhile, Western oil firms, in particular, are struggling to produce any more of the stuff than they did two or three years ago. That has left little spare production capacity and, in America at least, dwindling stocks. Every time a tempest brews in the Gulf of Mexico or dark clouds appear on the political horizon in the Middle East, jittery markets have pushed prices higher. This week, it was a cold snap in America and turmoil in Nigeria that helped the price reach three figures.

No wonder, then, that the phrase ?peak oil? has been gaining ground even faster than the oil price. With each extra dollar, the conviction grows that the planet has been wrung dry and will never be able to satisfy the thirst of a busy world.

cont'd...

 

[THEWOOD]

105.97...wow