Crude Oil Industry Headline News

"Oil Falls a Third Day on Concern the Recession Will Cut Demand"
Crude oil fell for a third day as the rising number of jobless workers in the U.S. intensified concern that the recession will cut fuel use in the world’s biggest energy-consuming country....Complete Story

"Schlumberger Eliminates 1,000 Jobs in North America"
Schlumberger Ltd., the world’s largest oilfield-services company, cut 1,000 jobs in North America yesterday to curb costs during a slump in oil and natural-gas exploration spending as economies slow....Complete Story

"Gazprom, Naftogaz Officials in Brussels"
The heads of Ukraine and Russia's energy companies arrived in Brussels to negotiate an end to a natural gas lock down that has left much of Europe cold....Complete Story

"Recovery of US Economy Crucial to Increase Crude Oil Demand"
The global financial crisis and slowing down of the US economy will have an impact on the Oil & Gas industry in Asia for the coming year. However, 2009 upstream investment and activity looks encouraging in both Malaysia and Singapore....Complete Story

"Chesapeake Energy Chief to Remain for 5 More Years"
Chesapeake's Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon agreed to remain at the helm of the natural gas producer for at least five years, under a new employment contract that provides him a $75 million bonus....Complete Story

Crude Oil Industry Headline News

"Crude Oil Plunges After Report of Larger Than Expected U.S. Supply Gains"
Oil futures tumbled after a U.S. government report showed a bigger-than-expected increase in supplies of crude oil, gasoline and distillate fuel....Complete Story

"Gas Crisis Freezes Economies in Balkans, Turkey"
Russian halted natural gas deliveries to Europe via Ukraine Wednesday amid freezing winter temperatures, escalating a dispute with the government in Kiev over the pricing and alleged theft of gas from the transit pipeline....Complete Story

"Petrobras-Led Consortium Gets Go-Ahead to Drill BCAM-40 Prospects"
Norse Energy, in partnership with Petrobras (Operator), Queiroz Galvao Oil & Gas and Brasoil, announce that the consortium has received the environmental licenses for the drilling of the BCAM-40 exploration prospects....Complete Story

Crude Inventory Numbers Spike Up

Crude oil inventory numbers took a big jump up on Wednesday with crude levels up more than 6 million barrels. A much larger gain then analyst predicted. This combined with a potential cease fire in the middle east has crude dropping more than $3.00 per barrel within minutes of inventory numbers being released at 10:30 eastern time.

Congratulations to all the traders out there that went short yesterday or this morning, make sure to take your profits. The DXO [long crude] traders will surely be looking at this as a buying opportunity and will be more than happy to strip your profits from you. First support is $44.05.

As I click the publish button on this blog post crude has fell $3.83.....is this fun or what?

Reasons To Be Bullish On Crude Oil

With crude oil prices dropping on lower demand there seems to be crude bulls coming out of the woodwork. Why? There are plenty of reasons.....

Reason One.....
It appears that the recent OPEC production cuts are starting to be effective.

Reason Two.....
With Hamas rocket attacks on Israel finally being responded to, natural gas controversy in Europe and civil war in Nigeria the geopolitical front is having an obvious effect.

Reason Three....
The Bush administration and the current Energy Department has begun scheduling the purchase of crude oil over the next few months to replace oil drawn from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves during last years hurricane season. This could add up to 25 million barrels this year alone.

Reason Four...
The Chinese government has announced that it will be buying another 19 million barrels for the own reserves over the next few months. They will also complete the next phase of construction on storage facilities adding another 170 million barrels of storage capacity.

For now the trend has shifted sideways to higher for crude oil. But ultimately, regardless of all of these reasons to be bullish, the U.S. and now the Chinese consumer remains in the driver seat, literally.

Crude Oil Industry Headline News

"Smart Money Moves Back into Energy, But Carefully"
A pair of deals by Oklahoma billionaire George B. Kaiser, widely considered one of the country's savviest energy investors, could be an early sign that after a massive selloff, the smart money is getting back into the oil industry....Complete Story

"Crude Hits One-Month Highs on Gas Spat Jitters"
Crude oil futures climbed more than $2 to above the psychologically important $50 a barrel Tuesday, spurred by concerns that a reduction in Russian natural gas flows to Europe could spark an increased demand for oil....Complete Story

"Chesapeake Energy Defies Skeptics"
Chesapeake capped a busy 2008 with the $412 million sale of natural-gas production in Oklahoma and Arkansas, proving to skeptics that the company knows how to get a deal done. Total value of Cheasapeake's deals for 2008 is roughly $12 billion....Complete Story

"OPEC Cuts Biting Into Oil Cos' Output Growth Areas"
Oil majors that derive a large part of their income from production in member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are finding the cartel's production cuts are....Complete Story

Crude Oil Industry Headline News

"Crude Oil Up But Seesaws On Gaza, Russia, Dollar"
U.S. crude oil futures edged upbut trading seesawed on Monday as a stronger dollar brought prices down from early highs hit as fighting in Gaza intensified....Complete Story

"Venezuela International Reserves Hit Record $42.2B in 2008"
Venezuela's international reserves were $42.2 billion at the end of 2008, the highest level on record because of lofty oil prices for most of the year....Complete Story

"Oil Curve Steeper Than '99 Shows Possible Gain In '09"
The steepest plunge in crude prices on record may be setting up oil investors for a rally this year, if history is any guide. The so-called forward curve of futures contracts traded on the New York....Complete Story

"Iran Says OPEC to Hold Emergency Meeting in February"
Iran's representative to OPEC said Monday that the organization would hold an emergency meeting in Kuwait in February. As part of OPEC's new plan, Iran will cut its crude oil output by 545,000 b/d in January....Complete Story

"China Filling Oil Reserves"
As the U.S. seeks to stockpile oil, China has been doing the same, observers say, and is expected to quicken the pace -- a development that already may be helping to boost oil prices....Complete Story

How Do We Connect The Stock Market Dots In 2009

One of the easiest ways for a trader to determine the trend of the stock market in the new year is to simply connect the dots. In this new five minute video, I explain how you can connect the dots in any market to determine its trend. I will show you three examples of connecting the dots.

1. How to determine a downtrend.
2. How to determine an uptrend.
3. How to determine when a market is making a change of direction.

One of the key components we look for is how a market closes on a Friday or the last trading day of the week. This is when traders have to decide what they want to do with their positions. It also tells you with a high degree of probability which way the market is headed for the upcoming week. This trading secret is brought to us by Adam Hewison who learned this from years of trading on the floor of the exchange in Chicago and it is one we would like to share with you today. I feel that this technique has a lot of validity, particularly in light of today's volatile markets.

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