NEWS / Foreign Exchange

Crude Market Update

• Crude Inventories: -1.6M barrels exp. || -3.93M barrels prior [10:30 et]

• Gasoline Inventories: +300K barrels exp. || +1.29M barrels prior [10:30 et]

• Distillate Inventories: -700K barrels exp. || +808K barrels prior [10:30 et]

• Indian Oil Minister: May take a decision next week on whether to raise prices

• French Prime Minister: The rise in oil prices is inexorable || Would be demagogy to suggest artificial ways to counteract higher oil prices

• British Petroleum: Norwegian unit to shut 80K bpd Valhall platform on Thursday due to a storm [bp.uk]

• Royal Dutch Shell CEO: Yamal will be a huge-scale long-term liquid gas and oil project [rdsa.uk]

• Gasoline prices are expected to catch up to the recent rally in crude oil as holiday demand rises and refining margins stabilize [WSJ]

• IEA raises long term oil price forecast, crude could hit nominal $159 per barrel by 2030

• IEA says that global energy demand to rise 55% in 2005-2030 with China and India accounting for 45% of the rise

• IEA says that an oil crunch period to 2015 learind to an abrupt rise in prices cannot be ruled out

• IEA says that global oil demand to rise 37% from 2006 to 116M bpd in 2030

• IEA sees China overtaking Japan as the number 2 oil importer by 2010

• IEA sees India overtaking Japan as the number 3 oil importer by 2020

• IEA sees OPEC output reaching 46M bpd in 2015, and 61M bpd in 2030

• IEA sees Chinese oil imports rising to 13.1M bpd in 2030 from 3.5M bpd in 2006

• The head of Libya's National Oil Corp. (NOC), Shokri Ghanem, confirmed to WGI that Italy's Eni has the gas reserves in place in Libya to produce and export a further 8 Bcm/yr (775 MMcf/d) -- split 5 Bcm/yr as LNG and 3 Bcm/yr by pipeline -- as called for under an Oct. 16 agreement between the two parties. Ghanem's confirmation cements Eni's position at the front of the LNG queue in Libya, where Royal Dutch Shell, BP and BG are each pursuing LNG opportunities -- but which first have to find gas. [World Gas Intelligence]