Crude futures rise on latest Nigeria attack, OPEC production cut

London (Platts)--15Dec2006

Global crude futures rose on Friday after an attack on a Shell oil
facility in Nigeria, adding to the bullish market sentiment created Thursday
by OPEC's decision to cut production by a further 500,000 b/d from February.
At 1058 GMT the new front-month February ICE Brent futures contract
changed hands at $63.29/barrel, up 40 cents/barrel from Thursday's close.
NYMEX and ICE WTI futures were at $62.84/barrel, up 33 cents/barrel.
"Prices are mainly supported by the latest incident in Nigeria and OPEC's
production cut," a London-based broker said.
Militants in the Niger Delta, Nigeria's key oil-producing region, took
around 40 people hostage after an attack late Thursday on an oil flow station
operated by Shell, a company spokeswoman said Friday.
"There was an attack last night...12,000 b/d of output has been shut in,"
the spokeswoman said. The attack on the Nun River flow station in Bayelsa
State is the latest in a series of incidents in the Delta. The shut-in crude
production is part of the Bonny Light system.
OPEC's decision to reduce output from February, coming on top of a 1.2
million b/d cut which took effect at the start of November, added to the
bullish sentiment, as did the release of the weekly US natural gas market data
by the Energy Information Administration on Thursday.
According to the EIA, US stocks saw a large withdrawal of 168 Bcf,
compared with industry expectations ranging from 148 Bcf to 153 Bcf.
Product prices were also stronger, with January ICE gasoil futures rising
by $2/mt to $556/mt on Friday. On NYMEX, January heating oil futures traded
0.85 cents higher at $1.785/gallon, whilst the RBOB contract rose 1.09 cents
to $1.681/gallon.
--Verena Peternell, verena_peternell@platts.com

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