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

To: Donaldm who wrote (56902)	12/14/1999 7:48:00 PM
From: pz	Respond to of 95453

Tuesday December 14, 7:16 pm Eastern Time Oil rises amid bullish stocks data; most shares up By Haitham Haddadin NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Oil posted sizeable gains on Tuesday as players bought back contracts ahead of key data expected to show bullish draws in U.S. petroleum stocks. Energy shares rose but Big Oil firms drifted with a wider share market hit by interest rate jitters and profit-taking. January U.S. light crude settled at $25.73 a barrel for a gain of 35 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) while in London, January Brent futures gained 42 cents at $25. Traders pegged the gains mostly to a buying spree amid forecasts that a widely-watched report from the American Petroleum Institute (API) would show declines in weekly oil and petroleum products inventories in the United States last week. While traders forecast an average crude draw of 2.25 million barrels, arguing refiners had ramped up winter heating oil output, the APIs, released after the close of the NYMEX session, showed a much more bullish 7.2 million barrel draw. This swiftly prompted a 50-cent gain in January crude in after hours NYMEX trade to over $26.00 a barrel. The report also cited gasoline and distillates draws of 4.0 million barrels each, also topping expectations by far. These figures stood in stark contrast to a huge 12.8 million barrel build in oil products stocks cited in last week's data. ``Crude's rise is related to the expectations of more positive inventory data after last week's figures which were difficult to reconcile,' said Paul Cheng of Lehman Brothers. Taking a longer-term view, he said the market generally assumes that barring drastic events, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ``will stay the course' on global crude output cuts until the end of March 2000. The cutbacks had more than doubled oil prices this year. Oil had drifted sharply lower at the end of last week after news that the U.N. Security Council has approved a new six month phase of the ``oil-for-food' deal with Iraq. Players are now awaiting the return of Iraqi exports, averaging some 2.3 million barrels per day, by the end of the week. They are also eying a crucial U.N. vote on a wider resolution that could suspend stringent sanctions on Baghdad. Also in the news, U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, clarifying remarks last week that had caused oil to fall, said oil from the nation's strategic petroleum reserve would only be sold in the event of an emergency and not to lower prices. On the equities markets, sectoral oil indices closed mostly up apart from the S&P Oil and Gas Index (^SPOILP - news) measuring the independents' performance, which eased 0.62 percent to 53.21. The Philadelphia Oil Services Index (^OSX - news) rose 2.35 percent to 71.95 points while the S&P Refining Index (^SPENRM - news) raked in a 2.83 percent gain at 96.21. Among the latter's components, independent refiner Tosco (NYSE:TOS - news) climbed 1-5/16 to 26-7/16, while Sunoco (NYSE:SUN - news) finished 11/16 up at 24-1/16. S&P International Oil Index (^SPOILI - news) tracking oil majors rose a mere 0.16 percent to 960.49 but there were no gainers among the biggest oil firms. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM - news), the world's largest publicly traded oil firm, shed 5/16 to 82-3/8 while Texaco (NYSE:TX - news) was down 1/16 at 53-1/4 and Chevron (NYSE:CHV - news) fell 12/16 at 87-13/16. ``The majors have been holding up relatively better than other sectors, so it could be profit-taking today. But there are no big falls, so you can't draw conclusions,' Cheng said.