NEW YORK, May 12 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose 1 percent in volatile trade on Thursday, with U.S. crude hitting six-month highs as investors weighed a forecast for tighter global supplies against signs of another storage build at the hub for U.S. crude futures. Worries of a major outage in Nigerian crude also boosted the market, some traders said.

"It was a mixed bag, with both longs and shorts trying to defend positions based on the data that appealed most to them. The bulls prevailed," said Phil Flynn, analyst at the Price Futures Group in Chicago.

http://www.downstreamtoday.com/news/article.aspx?a_id=52141

How come a tangible estimation of actual, proven US reserves combined with a potentially serious disruption of actual, proven Nigerian output only bumps oil prices by 1% where a few weeks ago, the price of iron ore futures rocketed over 25% in a single day, solely based on some nameless Chinese mandarin claiming that China will be buying just as much raw commodities as it always has. This off-the-record statement was without any corroboration or evidence that they can or will do so.

This is a seriously messed up sector with the leaders of nations and CEO's of multinationals grabbing what profits they can from stock market reactions to speculative statements that have absolutely no basis in fact. Witness the CEO of Rosneft recently predicting that OPEC is dead. How many times have we heard that old chestnut from a 'respected' senior manager of a global oil company?

They are definitely not addressing the longer-term issue of re-investing their not insubstantial market rewards in the current business OR the alternatives. Lay-off, downsize but keep the shareholders happy... and pick up a few million bucks bonus for your efforts.

This is going to get worse, a whole lot worse before it ever gets better.

Edited May 15, 201610 yr by NanLaew