Lukoil, Investors Buy $2.4 Billion of Company's Shares From ConocoPhillips

Lukoil, Russia’s largest oil producer not controlled by the state, together with a group of investors bought almost 5 percent of Lukoil’s shares from ConocoPhillips [COP] for $2.4 billion, the Moscow based company said.

Lukoil and the investor group bought 42.5 million shares in the form of American depositary receipts at a price of $56 each. The purchase, arranged by UniCredit Bank AG, was for less than half of an 11.6 percent holding that ConocoPhillips had made available under an option that expired yesterday, Lukoil said in an emailed statement.

The deal aims at enhancing the company’s attractiveness to investors. “It allows us to support our share prices, since the transaction is funded by the group’s internal resources, without increasing the company’s total debt,” Lukoil Vice President Leonid Fedun said in the statement today.....Read the entire article.

The "Super Cycle" in Gold and How It Will Affect Your Pocketbook in 2010

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Commerzbank: Oil May Drop to Test $63

Crude oil may drop to test a support line around $63 a barrel in New York should it fail to reach two key targets above $74, according to technical analysis by Commerzbank AG. Oil has failed to re attain this year’s high of $73.23 a barrel reached on June 11. A fresh rally will be capped in a range between $74.54, the 200 week moving average, and $76.28, a critical level using so called Fibonacci analysis, Commerzbank said. Failure to breach these points may send crude plunging toward a support line connecting the lowest prices of the past six months, the bank said. "We would allow for probes into this key overhead resistance band, but would again allow for initial failure" Commerzbank analyst Karen Jones said in a report yesterday. "Failure here would once again cast attention back to support offered by the six month uptrend".....Complete Story