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Gold/Mining/Energy : Canadian Oil & Gas Companies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CIMA who wrote (8542)	11/19/2001 12:12:41 AM
From: Richard Saunders	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24899

Crude Oil Prices Drag October Commodity Price Index to 33 Month Low, say Bank of Montreal Economists newswire.ca TORONTO, Nov. 18 /CNW/ - The oil and gas sector has helped drag the Bank of Montreal Commodity Price Index to its lowest level since February 1999, say the bank's economists. The October index dropped 4.7 per cent to 98.4 (1993=100), marking the eighth time in the past ten months that the index has fallen. In October, all major commodity groups, with the exception of agriculture, continued their downward trajectory. The bank's commodity index has now dropped 26.4 per cent from a year ago with the Oil and Gas Index leading the fall with a year-to-year decline of 45.6 per cent. Crude oil prices have now dropped from a high of close to US$35 per barrel last October to this October's price of less than US$22 per barrel. By mid November, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate had fallen to the US$17.50 mark as further production cuts by OPEC were put into doubt by Russia's refusal to make significant reductions of its own. "The increased uncertainty about near term global economic conditions has continued to undermine commodity prices," said Earl Sweet, Associate Chief Economist, Bank of Montreal. "We now believe that this year's price levels will finish below 1993 levels." The bank's economists reported that the Oil and Gas Index was battered by a 16.4 per cent drop in the price of crude oil in October, which more than offset the concurrent 23 per cent rise in the price of natural gas. The Index registered an overall decline of 3.3 per cent. The continued decline in crude oil prices is attributed to softening demand brought on by weak global economic conditions in general, and a sharp decline in post-September 11 air travel in particular. "Unless OPEC and other major oil exporters further restrain production, inventories will continue to rise over winter and oil prices will remain under downward pressure through to the summer of 2002," stated Mr. Sweet...............