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Strategies & Market Trends : YEEHAW CANDIDATES -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JoeinIowa who wrote (1996)	5/21/2003 7:59:02 PM
From: JoeinIowa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23958

05/21/03 05:36 pm Msg: 4003 of 4006 Oil, natural gas rally on supply figures Inventory data mixed; Greenspan sparks natural-gas rise By Myra P. Saefong, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 3:45 PM ET May 21, 2003 NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Growing concerns about the tight state of petroleum and natural-gas supplies rallied the energy market Wednesday, lifting crude futures to a fresh two-month high and raising natural-gas prices by as much as 5 percent. Crude for July delivery rose by 62 cents to close at $29.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract briefly reached $29.60 earlier in the session, the highest seen since March 17. June natural-gas contract jumped to $6.198 per million British thermal units, up 14.2 cents after touching a high at $6.33. Greenspan helps rally natural gas Natural-gas prices rallied after Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan reignited concerns about the tightness of natural-gas inventory in the U.S. during congressional testimony Wednesday. "It's an extremely serious problem," he said, pointing out that gas supplies in storage are at "extremely low levels, and the normal seasonal rebuilding of these inventories seems to be behind the typical schedule." Robert Fuhrmann, an analyst at My Futures Online doesn't think Greenspan's comments included any fresh news for natural gas, but "the bulls may be taking his comments as justification to rally prices," he said. Greenspan pointed out that Canada, a major source of domestic gas imports, "has little room to expand shipments to the United States" and limited capacity in the U.S. to import liquefied natural gas effectively "restricts our access to the world's abundant supplies of natural gas." Tight supplies reflect increases in demand over the past two years, he explained. Read more. Some traders believe inventories are so tight that prices could climb up to $11 by late summer, prompting many to buy on price dips, said John Person, head financial analyst at Infinity Brokerage Services. Domestic natural gas supplies of 900 billion cubic feet for the week ended May 9 are 807 billion cubic feet less that the year-ago total, according to the Energy Department. A fresh supply update is due Thursday morning. Analysts at IFR Pegasus expect the government to report an 80 billion to 90 billion cubic foot increase in stocks for the week ended May 16. A year ago, stocks rose 68 billion cubic feet. Earlier this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an active hurricane season for the Gulf Coast and East Coast, feeding concerns that the severe weather will disrupt natural-gas output from that region. "This market could explode with increased dangers from hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and of course a massive summer heat wave drawing demand from power plants who use natural gas," said Person. Myra P. Saefong is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco.