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Monday February 1, 2016

// February 1st, 2016 // Daily News

Oil falls on China data, fading prospect of OPEC action

Reuters

Oil fell as much as 4 percent on Monday as weak economic data from China, the world’s largest energy consumer, weighed on prices and an OPEC source played down talk of an emergency meeting to stem the decline.
Cina’s manufacturing sector contracted at the fastest pace since 2012 in January, adding to worries about demand from the world’s second-biggest economy at a time when the market is already weighed down by a large supply overhang.
“The weak China PMI (purchasing managers index) is driving down prices because China weighs on the entire commodities sector from the demand side of the equation,” said Carsten Fritsch, senior oil analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.
Brent April crude futures were down 96 cents at $35.03 a barrel at 8:30 a.m. ET (1330 GMT), off a session low of $34.85. The March Brent contract, which expired on Friday, settled at $34.74 a barrel.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate was down $1.30, or 3.8 percent, at $32.32 a barrel, having earlier fallen as low as $32.19.
A senior OPEC source told a Saudi Arabian newspaper it was too early to talk about an emergency meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Oil prices jumped last week after Russian energy officials said they had received proposals from OPEC lynchpin Saudi Arabia on managing output and were ready to talk.
“We do not expect such a cut will occur unless global growth weakens sharply from current levels, which is not our economists’ forecast,” investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a report.
Workers drill at the Saudi Aramco oil field complex facilities at Shaybah in the Rub’ al Khali desert in Shaybah, Saudi Arabia. (File Photo).
How long can Saudi Arabia live with $30 oil?
OPEC member Iran, which last month was allowed to return fully to markets after years of sanctions, is so far unwilling to participate in cuts.
Partly because of Iran’s return, OPEC production has jumped to 32.60 million barrels per day (bpd), its highest in years, adding to a global glut of over 1 million bpd in excess of demand, which has pulled down oil prices 70 percent since mid-2014.
Oil exports from OPEC member Iraq rose in January, its oil ministry said on Monday, reaching an average of 3.285 million bpd, up from 3.215 million bpd the previous month.
However overall production from its southern fields fell last month, slipping from a record high reached at the end of last year.
BMI Research has cut its oil price outlook for Brent to a 2016 average of $40 per barrel from $42.50 previously, and said WTI would average $39.50.
“Counteracting oil’s upside momentum in 2016 will be the weakness of the Chinese yuan, lingering concerns over global economic growth and the well-stocked inventories of crude and fuels,” BMI said, adding that a gradual price rise was expected in the second half of the year.
In a sign investors are speculating on an oil rebound, data from the InterContinental Exchange showed net long positions in Brent rose the most in four years last week.
“Part of the bullish action in Brent crude oil … is from fundamentals in Asia where parts of the oil complex are supportive with very strong China imports of NGL (natural gas liquids) and Naphtha, which has put these products in backwardation both in Asia and in Europe,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB Markets in Oslo.

Today’s Inspiration

One Good Choice After Another

by Joyce Meyer – posted February 01, 2016

Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
—Proverbs 4:25 NIV

Are you enjoying the life and blessings of God in your everyday life? Or have you made a series of choices resulting in disappointment, pain, or feeling that everything you do requires great effort and produces little reward? Don’t spend your time and energy mourning all the bad decisions you have made; just start making good ones. There is hope for you!

The way to overcome the results of a series of bad choices is through a series of right choices. The only way to walk out of trouble is to do the opposite of whatever you did to get into trouble—one choice at a time.

Maybe the circumstances of your life right now are the direct result of a series of bad choices you have made. You may be in debt because you have made a lot of bad choices with money. You may be lonely because of a series of bad choices in relationships or in the way you treat people. You may be sick because of a series of unhealthy choices: eating junk food, not getting enough rest, or abusing your body through working too much and not having enough balance in your life.

You cannot make a series of bad choices that result in significant problems and then make one good choice and expect all the results of all those bad choices to go away. You did not get into deep trouble through one bad choice; you got into trouble through a series of bad choices. If you really want your life to change for the better, you will need to make one good choice after another, over a period of time, just as consistently as you made the negative choices that produced negative results.

No matter what kind of trouble or difficulty you find yourself in, you can still have a blessed life. You cannot do anything about what is behind you, but you can do a great deal about what lies ahead of you. God is a redeemer, and He will always give you another chance.

Trust in Him: If you have a situation that is too big for you to solve, then you are material for a miracle. Invite God to get involved, trust in and follow His directions, make one good choice after another, and you will see amazing results.