Daily Archives: February 25, 2011

CME Group Q&A session delayed

February 25, 2011 5:00 pm by Kiran Stacey

Apologies to our readers, but we’ve had to delay the planned Q&A session with the CME Group. We hope to be able to publish it on Monday, so keep watching this site.

Saudis increase oil output – official

February 25, 2011 3:55 pm by David Blair

We now have confirmation from the International Energy Agency that the Saudis have indeed raised their output.

The IEA has not disclosed its estimate of the scale of the increase, but nor has it denied earlier suggestions that Saudi Arabia has begun producing above 9m barrels per day. Its level of output in January was 8.6m b/d, so the kingdom appears to have raised its output by some 400,000 b/d.

A Saudi oil official declined to confirm or deny any of these figures earlier today. But it seems that the talks with European refiners on the quantity and quality of oil they required have indeed borne fruit.

The news confirms what has been priced into the market since last night (note: this chart is WTI, rather than our usual Brent, because of some chart formatting errors – but the direction is the same).

Tags: Oil price, Saudi Arabia
Posted in Markets, Oil, Politics | Permalink

From FT.com February 25, 2011

BP directors fail to show for TNK-BP meeting

All four BP-nominated directors failed to turn up for an extraordinary meeting of TNK-BP’s board on Friday, torpedoing a crucial vote on whether the Russian oil venture should participate in the UK oil group’s alliance with Rosneft.

“The board was not able to vote because the BP directors did not show up,” said Stan Polovets, chief executive of AAR, BP’s Russian partners in TNK-BP. “There was no quorum.”

The no-show by BP raises the stake in a stand-off between BP and the Russian billionaire partners in TNK-BP who claim BP’s alliance with Rosneft, the state-controlled oil company, is a breach of their shareholder agreement with BP.

Continue reading: “BP directors fail to show for TNK-BP meeting”

Tags: AAR, BP, Rosneft, TNK-BP
Posted in Corporate news, Oil | Permalink

From beyondbrics February 25, 2011

Oil spike: a word from Saudi Arabia

By David Blair

The fact that active negotiations are taking place between Saudi Arabia and European refiners to establish how the kingdom might replace Libyan supplies has calmed the market after Thursday’s panic-buying sent a barrel of Brent crude above $119.

But the most crucial question of all remains unanswered: has Saudi Arabia actually begun to produce more oil?

Continue reading: “Oil spike: a word from Saudi Arabia”

Tags: Oil price, Saudi Arabia
Posted in Markets, Oil, Politics | Permalink

Cryptic clues on Libyan oil supply

February 25, 2011 12:21 pm by Kiran Stacey

Reuters and Upstream are reporting what looks like good news for those relying on Libyan oil supplies. According to both sources, Jammal bin Nour a judge and member of the coalition that says it is in charge in Benghazi, has said: