ESLR 2.48 last trade - gets a STRONG buy today
This is for both immediate pop and long term port
Alt energy will pick up momentum
This company looks financially sound, nice yty and qtq growth with under 50 million shares out and large inside ownership
Reuters
Oil Holds Strong Near $45 on Iraq, Russia
Wednesday August 11, 7:32 am ET
By Richard Mably
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices held strong near record highs on Wednesday as sabotage in Iraq, worries about Russian oil company YUKOS and a fresh warning on the lack of spare capacity in OPEC underscored concerns about tight world supplies.
U.S. light crude rose 11 cents to $44.61 a barrel, after touching a record $45.04 on Tuesday. U.S. prices are up 19 percent, or $7 a barrel, since the end of June. London Brent rose 14 cents to $41.42 a barrel.
Iraqi oil exports were running at about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) compared to the 1.9 million being pumped before a sabotage attack on Monday on Iraq's main southern export pipeline. Iraqi officials said repairs were expected to restore full capacity as early as late-Wednesday.
OPEC's spare sustainable production capacity shrank to 600,000 barrels a day in July as the cartel raised output in a bid to counter high oil prices, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly Oil Market Report.
"The thin margin of spare capacity held by OPEC producers has contributed to recent price strength," said the IEA, adviser on energy to 26 industrialized nations.
That leaves a buffer of less than one percent on the 82-million-bpd world market, compared to about eight percent in 2002 when spare capacity in OPEC was 6-7 million bpd.
Russia's biggest oil exporter YUKOS continues to battle bankruptcy, trying to avoid a disruption to its daily operations and export sales, a threat that has helped push up oil prices.
Russia's Federal Energy Agency said on Wednesday it will ask court bailiffs to unblock YUKOS's frozen accounts, worried that exports could be cut if it cannot access cash.
"It is not possible for a big company to exist without financing for its operations," the head of the agency, Sergei Oganesyan, told reporters.
The comments by Russia's number two oil official mark the first public sign of dispute within the government over the handling of YUKOS.
"We are raising the issue of unblocking YUKOS' accounts in order to make minimal payments. Our aim is to prevent the stoppage of wells, since YUKOS is now 20 percent of our output and other companies could not pick up the slack," he said.
"Up to 35 million tonnes a year (700,000 barrels per day), including supplies to China, could in theory not reach the world markets." He did not specify how he made his calculations. YUKOS produces 1.7 million bpd and exports more than one million bpd.
Traders are concerned that YUKOS rail shipments of around 300,000 bpd could cease. Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft has said other firms could compensate for lost YUKOS volumes if the oil giant was unable to pay its shipping fees.
YUKOS says it has paid fees to keep Transneft shipping its oil until the end of August. The state railway company said on Monday that YUKOS had paid transport fees in time for a Tuesday deadline and it expected to keep YUKOS oil moving toward ports.
In the United States, oil companies have shut small volumes of oil and gas production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and evacuated 1,700 workers as a precaution against two tropical storms.
An expected increase in weekly U.S. oil inventories, data due for release by the Energy Information Administration at 1430 GMT, could cool prices or prevent further increases.
A Reuters survey of seven analysts showed average forecasts of a modest 1 million barrel build in crude stocks on increased imports and reduced refinery operations. |
