NYMEX – Infinite Unknown

Saudi Arabia drops WTI oil contract as a blow to NYMEX

October 29, 2009 by Infinite

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threatens the dominance of the world’s most heavily traded oil futures contract. It is the main contract traded on Nymex.

The move reveals the growing discontent of Riyadh and its US refinery customers with WTI after the price of the price of the benchmark became separated from the global oil market this year.

A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading

August 22, 2008 by Infinite

Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses.

But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol’s books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel. Even more surprising to the commodities markets was the massive size of Vitol’s portfolio — at one point in July, the firm held 11 percent of all the oil contracts on the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange.

The discovery revealed how an individual financial player had gained enormous sway over the oil market without the knowledge of regulators. Other CFTC data showed that a significant amount of trading activity was concentrated in the hands of just a few speculators.

Big CFTC data revision raises oil traders’ eyebrows

August 8, 2008 by Infinite

“There may have been multiple ‘positions’ which were reclassified … but they all appear to have been held by just one trader, and this was a very special trader, with an enormous concentration of positions in crude oil amounting to perhaps 460 million barrels, and not much interest in anything else,” noted John Kemp of RBS Sempra Commodities.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A quiet data revision that has boosted by nearly 25 percent the number of oil futures contracts U.S. regulators think are held by speculators is raising eyebrows in the energy trading community.

Crude oil at new high just under $114; gas also at a record

April 15, 2008April 15, 2008 by Infinite

NEW YORK (AP) — Crude oil prices rose to within a penny of $114 a barrel Tuesday, setting a new record as concerns mounted about global supplies. U.S. retail gasoline and diesel prices also struck new highs.Traders honed in on a report by the International Energy Agency that said Russian oil production dropped this year for the first time in a decade. The report raised concerns about whether the key oil-producing nation will have enough supply to help feed growing global demand.

“In an emotionally driven market like we’ve got now, it just doesn’t take much in the way of a headline to prompt a psychological response,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Ill.