Commodity Corner

Commodities Agenda: All about Ike (and that sex scandal too)

The latest projections pointed Hurricane Ike toward the middle of the Texas coast, skirting to the west of the main region for offshore production in the Gulf. Nonetheless, oil companies have shut more than 95 percent of offshore production and 90 percent of refining capacity on the mainland. Weakening demand is still the driver for the market this morning; crude oil prices are under pressure

Elsewhere in the oil patch, an U.S. Interior Department report makes for unusually salacious reading, with claims that employees who oversaw oil drilling on federal lands had sex and used illegal drugs with workers at energy companies. “When confronted by our investigators, none of the employees involved displayed remorse,” inspector general Earl Devaney said.

The internal report on the department’s Minerals Management Service emerges a day after Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives unveiled legislation that, if passed, would permit offshore drilling at least 50 miles from U.S. coasts.

Some of the stories Reuters commodities reporters are tracking today:

House Agriculture committee hold hearing on price movements in agriculture and energy commodity markets USDA export sales US ITC releases base metals import data