Craig Pennington Oil Quotations

If we get a normal winter, we'll probably have enough inventories, but if we get a very harsh winter, inventories could collapse to unseen levels. The oil market would be very jittery with any supply disruptions.

The oil market has been driven by speculators, by hedge funds, by pension funds and by commodity indexes, but the fact of the matter is that it's mostly been driven by the fundamentals. Prices are supported by the fact that there is no spare capacity.

With oil prices at $60 a barrel it was a foregone conclusion they were not going to cut. If you do see disruption from Nigeria, if you do see disruption from Iran, the oil price will go substantially higher from here. So OPEC is reluctant to start turning the taps off just now.

A bit of the premium in the oil price on Iran has been taken off today.

A bit of the premium in the oil price on Iran has been taken off today. The market interpretation (of U.S. comments) is that there will be no sanctions and that oil won't be used.