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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Big Dog who wrote (49102)	8/10/1999 9:24:00 AM
From: Wowzer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

In the WSJ today: August 10, 1999 Crude-Oil Prices Hit a Record; Heating Oil, Gasoline Advance By PETER A. MCKAY Dow Jones Newswires Crude-oil prices jumped in late trading Monday, ending a mostly sluggish session at a new contract high with just a few weeks to go in the peak driving season. September crude-oil futures rose 39 cents to close at $21.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday, the highest front-month close since Oct. 22, 1997. Other energy futures also closed higher, spurred in part by crude oil, analysts said. Front-month gasoline futures prices rose five cents to 77.75 cents a gallon, heating oil rose 0.68 cent to 55.21 cents a gallon and natural gas rose 2.3 cents to $2.721 per million BTU's. The price moves are part of oil's continued rally in recent weeks as production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and gasoline demand for summer car trips have buoyed the energy markets. Analysts disagreed, however, on how much longer that rally can last. "We're going to see 23 or 24" dollars a barrel of crude oil, one broker said. "All the risk is to the downside; there's no risk to the upside right now." Energy prices received a bit of bullish news when a boiler reportedly exploded at a Citgo Corp. oil refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, that processes 150,000 barrels of oil per day, said John Kilduff, a senior vice president for energy risk management at Fimat USA Inc. However, the market also seemed to ignore a few bearish developments, including Russian Prime Minister Boris Yeltsin's sudden replacement of his government and a dumping complaint by American producers against several Latin American oil-producing countries. And with just a few weeks before the summer driving season ends as children return to school and vacationing parents go back to work, Mr. Kilduff said he doubts oil will rise much further. He noted that gasoline demand slipped slightly last week to 8.1 million gallons nationwide. "People are talking $24 crude oil, but I think that's overdone," he said. "There's no question, though, that the targets are pretty high right now for this market." Volume was sluggish for most of Monday until perhaps the final half-hour of trading on Nymex. In the sudden spate of buying, traders said crude oil hit a market-imposed trading stop at $21.15 a barrel, before trading resumed and it moved even higher. "There's no question this was a bullish close," said Steve Bellino, a senior vice president of energy risk management at Fimat USA in New York. "It's evident that people are buying the front of the market, which hasn't always been the case." Tuesday, traders will be watching for a weekly report by the American Petroleum Institute on petroleum inventories.