It now looks like the next hurricane will miss the Gulf refining region. The storm may do significant damage to Florida though, which would further hit the economy. |
It's a silver lining, but it's not positive enough to get traders to stop staring down Rita. |
It's the uncertainty on the storm's track. We're still quite a nervous market, and a substantial fear premium has already been priced in at this point, ... We're hanging on every report. |
Last week's report showed that there was 2.802 trillion cubic feet in storage, which participants have apparently judged to be more than adequate for the remainder of the season. |
Last week's report showed that there was 2.802 trillion cubic feet in storage, which participants have apparently judged to more than adequate for the remainder of the season. |
Natural gas consumers are having their prayers answered. |
Natural gas is the one commodity here that I have very little to say about in the way of good news. |
Oil at $60 and $70 was predicated on extremely strong economic growth and these hurricanes have had a deleterious effect on the economy. |
Oil at $60 wears on consumers. If prices continue to fall demand will rebound. |
Oil should move lower because of the build in product supplies and the rapid disappearance of winter-weather worries. The continued fall in natural gas should also help pull all energy contracts lower. |
OPEC has discovered that the economy can handle higher oil prices, which is unfortunate for consumers. We are going to see them try to keep prices in a $50-to- $60 range. |
OPEC would like to see lower prices and is doing what it can. The OPEC ministers left open the prospect of a rollback in quotas at the March meeting. |
Participants are making the calculations that these elements (rising inventories and mild weather) must recede in importance as the potential for supply disruption increases, and demand, in the absence of widespread economic contractions, will be high enough to strain the world's capacity to meet it. |
Prices are going to be driven directly by the projected path of the storm, |
Prices fell off markedly from last weeks highs, so clearly there is a significant amount of spillover from the rest of the complex. |