NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) – Crude oil has shown great
resilience in the face of unsupportive data over the last month,
bolstered by traders’ optimism that central banks will prime the
economic pump yet again by printing more money.

Even traders who acknowledge that sentiment may have lifted
crude temporarily out of alignment with fundamentals say they
have to keep buying. Momentum can be friendly, after all.

NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) – Stubbornly high inventories at
the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for West Texas
Intermediate crude oil contract, are a ticking time bomb that
could blow out the spread between WTI and Brent futures.

Take the spread between the October WTI and Brent contracts.
Although it has jumped more than $3 a barrel since early July to
hit $14 a barrel, it is still below the $15.71 per barrel level
hit in April.

NEW YORK, July 12 (Reuters) – Soaring corn futures and
stagnating oil prices spell disaster for the U.S. ethanol sector
this summer. A repeat of the industry’s financial troubles from
a few years ago cannot be ruled out.

US corn futures have soared as evidence has mounted that
drought conditions will devastate this year’s crop. Front-month
corn futures have jumped 15 percent since the end of June.

NEW YORK, July 13 (Reuters) – Western diplomats can hardly
believe their luck. Sanctions against Iran’s oil exports are
proving more effective than hoped yet the impact on the price of
crude has so far been minimal.

It was not supposed to be this way. A decade of Iranian
intransigence over its disputed nuclear program had finally
eroded Western patience. Sanctions were supposed to be a
painful, but necessary step.

NEW YORK, July 12 (Reuters) – Soaring corn futures and
stagnating oil prices spell disaster for the U.S. ethanol sector
this summer. A repeat of the industry’s financial troubles from
a few years ago cannot be ruled out.

US corn futures have soared as evidence has mounted that
drought conditions will devastate this year’s crop. Front-month
corn futures have jumped 15 percent since the end of June.

NEW YORK, July 5 (Reuters) – An explanation of why Brent
crude oil futures have jumped more than 10 percent since late
June that does not take into account the very narrow physical
basis of the contract is missing a big piece of the puzzle.

This is not to say that geopolitical tensions or investor
positioning played no role in the run-up.

NEW YORK, June 25 (Reuters) – For a long time, Brazil’s
Petrobras was the state-run oil company that was supposed to
show other state-run oil companies how it was done.

But burdened with unrealistic government policy, Petrobras
is starting to look as broken as some of the
industry’s laggards.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Amid this week’s carnage in crude oil markets with Brent futures slumping to 18-month lows, bullish traders have held out hope that Saudi Arabia will bail out the market with a quick cutback in oil production. They are likely to be disappointed.

Saudi Arabia has driven oil into a supply surplus this year by ratcheting up its own production to near 10 million barrels per day.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia has cleared up any doubts about its unhappiness with oil prices above $100 a barrel but last week’s OPEC meeting has done nothing to dispel speculation that the kingdom may be willing to see crude go much lower for a while.

Crude’s collapse from near $130 a barrel earlier this year has been brought about by a slowing world economy and determination on the part of Saudi Arabia to force the world to sit up and take notice when it flexes its supply muscles.

VIENNA (Reuters) – It is no exaggeration to say the impact of the pending U.S. and European sanctions against Iran are one of the most taboo subjects at an OPEC meeting in years.

A visitor from Mars could well walk away from the day to day events in Vienna under the impression that the impending U.S. and European sanctions regimes has nothing to do with Iranian oil exports.