Problems at 2 US refineries

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Don't know how to link. Check out www.gold-eagle.com. Under "Gold Forum," someone posted article "Flash. Flash. Flash" that problems at 2 out of 95 U.S. refineries caused across-the-board buying today. Not known whether y2k related or not.

-- J Wheel (motherof5@wellprepared.noregrets), January 04, 2000

Answers

http://pub3.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets.showMessag e?topicID=17.topic

-- Bruce (can I buy@barrel.please?), January 04, 2000.

ERROR The URL that you requested could not be found. You may have typed the URL incorrectly or we may have a broken link.

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-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.


you've got to take the space out between the g and the e in message.

It seems to be a cross post from this forum.

"***CASH MARKETS SEE STRONG DEMAND IN RESPONSE TO REFINERY WOES The Gulf and New York spot markets saw plenty of buying demand on just about everything on the fuel menu today with two refinery problems impacting the Gulf arena. First, a Sunday power outage knocked out operations at Motiva's 220,000 b/d Norco, La. refinery. Spot sources tell OPIS that full production won't be realized for about ten days even though a Shell source said that restart efforts would be completed by the weekend. Also, Gulf sources say that Coastal has a FCC problem at its 103,000 b/d Corpus Christi refinery and these events had refiner buying cropping that knocked the gasoline discount in the Gulf down to 4.6cts off the Feb. print. In the Midwest, spot sources say that Equilon's 310,000 b/d Wood River, Ill. refinery has been reduced to 100,000 b/d output due to an unspecified crude unit problem. That news sparked robust buying in the Chicago market where 1st cycle gasoline went to 2cts over the NYMEX. The problems in the Gulf had a ripple effect in NY where less bbl are coming up the Colonial pipeline and sent both jet and kero prices soaring. Traders say that jet was sold in the Harbor at 10.3cts over the futures print, while kero sold at 12.5cts over. There are reports that cargoes from the St. Croix refiner co-owned by PDVSA and Hess were being diverted from the Gulf and are now heading for Europe, and that's creating another product squeeze along the same lines seen last week. "

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Mike

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-- Mike Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), January 04, 2000.


Yes, it is a cross post from this forum.

OIL

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), January 04, 2000.


Yes, yes, curious market today. Crude sold off early then spiked when the funds didn't know where else to go with their dollars. Messy messy day for the markets. Brent was down harder than TI indicating that the physical markets don't think there are problems. This is contrary to a few things I heard today. There were problems at Statford and Forcados. Also some other doo dads etc. that made me wonder, just briefly if this thing's over yet. Little blurb in the article below about Ceyhan weeklong interruption etc. Also interested to see the Gulf problems caused by dirty power in my uninformed opinion. I must admit I was surprised to see crude stay so strong in the face of no apparent Y2K problems. Lots and lots of problems with "non-embedded" systems issues billowing through the industry. Should be fun.

Most thought todays snapback was due to bullish expectations on stats.

for edu and resch purp only: Tuesday January 4, 6:05 am Eastern Time Note: this article has a followup with more information.

FOCUS-Oil tumbles as wholesalers destock after Y2K

By Richard Mably

LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Oil prices took a dive on Tuesday, hit by the smooth transition through the millennium computer date change and abnormally mild weather in the United States.

Benchmark Brent crude in the first trading day of the New Year opened a $1.18 down before recovering to stand at $24.39 a barrel, a 69 cent loss from last Thursday's close.

Dealers attributed the decline in part to Tuesday's temperatures of an extraordinary 20-25 degrees fahrenheit over the seasonal norm in the Northeast United States, the world's single largest heating oil market.

``The driving force behind the rout are forecasts of mild weather on the U.S. East Coast. The overall pattern of mild temperatures means that winter demand has been poor,'' said Lawrence Eagles of brokers GNI in a daily report.

Boston-based Weather Services Corp in a 6-10 day forecast said U.S. Northeast temperatures were expected to moderate but stay above normal. Mild winter weather also was forecast for other leading heating oil consuming regions Europe, South Korea and Japan.

Traders said the lack of any significant supply disruption from the millennium computer bug also was having a negative impact on the oil market.

Potential troublespots like Russia and key OPEC powers in the Gulf, Africa and Latin America all said energy flows pumped through the date change to 2000 without incident.

Iraq too said exports continued after the clock on its export pipeline through Turkey was turned back by four years but shippers said exports from Ceyhan were scheduled for a week-long gap. That could cut average Iraqi supplies for January by 500,000 bpd to about 1.45 million.

Wholesalers and retailers that built up stocks in the West for fear of supply shortages now are expected to run down inventories.

Some 17 million barrels of crude, distillate fuel and gasoline that were stockpiled by distributors at the end of 1999 for Y2K reasons were likely to be returned to the U.S. market this month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Monday.

Nevertheless, analysts believe OPEC output curbs still will keep world supplies in deficit versus demand during the first quarter, keeping downward pressure on refinery inventories.

OPEC is not expected to make a final decision on whether to ease the output cuts until a March 27 meeting now scheduled for Vienna after Venezuela called for the postponement of a summit of OPEC leaders in Caracas.

Leading producers Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are expected to meet with non-OPEC Mexico in February or early March to recommend policy for OPEC.

Some analysts think OPEC is already loosening the reins on output policy by unofficially leaking supplies to thirsty refiners.

A report last week from a leading industry consultant estimated that OPEC compliance with self-imposed supply curbs slipped to 76 percent in November and is ``probably close to 70 percent'' in December.

Washington's Petroleum Finance Corp said that OPEC's leading policy makers, led by Saudi Arabia, had in recent weeks sought to alleviate fears of shortages in the oil market.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.



Gordon,

If that Reuters report was from a publicly available web site, would you post the URL? If it was from a subscription, or equivalent, website, I quess that would not be appropriate and/or would not work from the public net. In either case, thanks for the post.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), January 04, 2000.


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