Minyak WTI Melemah Setelah Persediaan Minyak Mentah AS Menguat

Minyak mentah West Texas Intermediate (WTI) turun untuk hari keempat setelah persediaan minyak mentah AS naik, dan investor mengkaji kemungkinan pemangkasan produksi minyak OPEC.

Minyak berjangka melemah 0,4% di New York. Stok minyak mentah AS naik sebesar 2,6 juta barel pekan lalu menjadi 381.100.000, menurut laporan Energy Information Administration (EIA). Organisasi Negara-negara Pengekspor Minyak (OPEC) harus memangkas kelebihan pasokan dan mengurangi target produksi, Gubernur OPEC Libya Samir Kamal mengatakan kemarin.

Minyak telah merosot ke bear market setelah Amerika Serikat meningkatkan suku bunga tertinggi dalam lebih dari tiga dekade di tengah tanda-tanda melemahnya permintaan. Memimpin anggota OPEC menolak permintaan untuk mengurangi produksi karena produsen minyak yang lebih kecil seperti Venezuela mencari tindakan untuk mendukung harga sebelum pertemuan 27 November mendatang di Wina.

Minyak mentah WTI untuk pengiriman Desember, yang berakhir hari ini, kehilangan 33 sen menjadi $ 74,25 per barel di perdagangan elektronik New York Mercantile Exchange dan berada di level $ 74,28 pada pukul 10:48 pagi waktu Sydney. Kontrak bulan Januari yang lebih aktif turun 23 sen menjadi $ 74,27. Volume semua berjangka yang diperdagangkan adalah sekitar 46% di bawah rata-rata 100 hari. Harga WTI telah turun 25% dalam tahun ini.

Sementara minyak mentah Brent untuk pengiriman Januari turun 37 sen, atau 0,5%, ke $ 78,10 per barel di bursa ICE Futures Europe exchange kemarin. Minyak mentah patokan Eropa mengakhiri sesi di level $ 3,60 lebih besar dari WTI untuk bulan yang sama.

OPEC, yang memasok sekitar 40% dari minyak dunia, memompa 30.970.000 barel per hari pada bulan Oktober, melampaui target produksi kolektif dari 30 juta barel untuk bulan kelima berturut-turut, data yang dikumpulkan oleh Bloomberg menunjukkan.(frk)

Sumber : Bloomberg

Gold Open Interest Rises to 22-Month High as Short Bets Climb

Holdings in gold contracts reached the highest in almost 22 months as investors added to bets that prices will drop. Futures fell.
The aggregate number of futures contracts yet to be closed, liquidated or delivered rose to 459,657 yesterday, the highest since Jan. 22, 2013. Money managers have boosted their short wagers to the highest in four weeks, while long holdings dropped to the lowest since January, government data show.
Investor appetite for bullion has ebbed as the dollar jumped to the highest since 2009 against a 10-currency basket and the Federal Reserve moved closer to its first U.S. interest-rate increase in eight years, cutting demand for the metal as an inflation hedge. Gold futures slumped to the lowest in four years this month, heading for a second straight annual loss.
Gold futures for December delivery lost 0.3 percent to settle at $1,193.90 an ounce today on the Comex in New York. The metal fell to $1,130.40 on Nov. 7, the lowest since April 2010.
Aggregate trading was more than double the 100-day average for this time, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Bullion has declined for two straight months, the longest slump this year, as U.S. equities surged to a record and inflation failed to accelerate. Fed officials said last month that lower energy costs may hold down consumer costs in the near term.
Source: Bloomberg

Halliburton, Baker Hughes Consider Merger

Halliburton Co. (HAL) is in talks to buy Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) in a deal that would combine two of the largest and oldest names in the energy business as plunging oil prices send the industry into a downturn.
By eliminating a competitor, Halliburton, already the world’s second-biggest provider of oilfield services, would gain market clout that would help insulate it from a sustained market decline. A combination of Halliburton with No. 3 Baker Hughes would be a little more than half the size of larger rival Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB)
“The two gorillas in the room are getting together,” said Ed Hirs, who lectures on energy economics at the University of Houston. “Halliburton and Baker Hughes would have been competing more strenuously to maintain market share in the downturn, but this will make that easier.”
Baker Hughes rose 15 percent yesterday to $58.75 a share in New York, giving the company a market value of more than $25 billion. Halliburton rose 1.1 percent to $53.79, giving it a market value of about $46 billion.
The deal will probably be closely scrutinized by federal antitrust regulators, especially where the two companies’ businesses overlap most in North America.
With Baker Hughes, Halliburton fills a gap in its portfolio of oilfield services: technology to boost production in aging wells. Halliburton also gets Baker Hughes’ prized oil tools business.

Photographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg

Employees work in a lab at the Halliburton Co. facility in Houston.

‘Global Footprint’

“These oilfield services companies need to have a global footprint of a complete portfolio of products and services,” Richard Spears, vice president at Tulsa, Oklahoma-based industry consultant Spears & Associates said in a phone interview. “Schlumberger has it; a Halliburton-Baker Hughes combination would mimic the Schlumberger footprint.”
In a statement yesterday, Baker Hughes said it is in “preliminary discussions” with Halliburton about a “potential business combination.” If negotiations are successful, a deal could be announced as soon as next week, said one person familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified discussing private information.
Halliburton doesn’t comment on market speculation, Emily Mir, a spokeswoman at Halliburton, said in an e-mail.
Halliburton initiated talks by contacting Baker Hughes several weeks ago, said one of the people with knowledge of the talks. Both companies are hired by oil and natural gas explorers to drill wells and provide services such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which cracks rock to let petroleum flow more freely.

Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg

Halliburton Co. workers support natural gas drilling operations in Rifle, Colorado.

Anti-Trust Questions

Discussions of late have focused on potential anti-trust issues and Halliburton has explored options such as setting up a unit to hold assets it’s willing to divest, this person said. If the deal is completed, Halliburton and Baker Hughes will probably announce to regulators a willingness to sell assets to overcome anti-trust concerns, the person added.
Halliburton may have to divest more than 20 percent of Baker Hughes to clear regulatory scrutiny, this person added.
Combined, the companies would dominate the $25 billion U.S. onshore fracking market with a 39 percent market share, more than double the size of its next competitor, Schlumberger, according to Spears & Associates.

Challenging Schlumberger

Schlumberger’s lead outside the U.S. and Canada would be considerably weakened by a Halliburton-Baker Hughes deal. Schlumberger’s international sales of $8.3 billion in the third quarter, more than double that of a stand-alone Halliburton, would outstrip a combined Halliburton-Baker Hughes by less than one third if a merger happened.
It’s unlikely the deal could make it through the U.S. Department of Justice without “something having to be carved off,” said Edward Muztafago, an analyst for Societe Generale in New York.
Baker Hughes would be Halliburton’s largest acquisition, topping a 1998 purchase of Dresser Industries Inc. for about $8 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Halliburton’s $14 billion in deals has lagged Schlumberger’s $27 billion in takeovers, the data show.
The takeover could be the largest of a U.S. oil services company, data compiled by Bloomberg show, and potentially the largest in the energy sector since Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) said in August it would acquire all of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP), Kinder Morgan Management LLC and El Paso Pipeline Partners LP in a series of transactions valued at about $44 billion.

Sinking Prices

Oil prices dropped to four-year lows yesterday as booming U.S. crude production combines with a shrinking forecast of demand growth. Lower prices could curtail drilling, meaning lower sales for Halliburton and its peers.
Prices should bottom out next year and begin climbing again, Dave Lesar, chief executive officer at Halliburton, said Oct. 22 in an interview from his Houston headquarters.
Both companies have century-old pedigrees in the business. Baker Hughes has its roots in billionaire Howard Hughes Jr.’s empire, started by his father in 1909. Hughes Tool Co. merged with Baker International in 1987.
Halliburton was started in 1914 when Earl P. Halliburton borrowed a team of mules along with a wagon, a pump, and a cement-mixing box to start a business cementing oil wells.
Halliburton reported third-quarter earnings that climbed 70 percent from a year earlier, and is expected to boost earnings 30 percent this quarter. The company, which has doubled its quarterly dividend over the past two years, reported cash of $2 billion at the end of the third quarter.
Baker Hughes said earnings rose 10 percent in the third quarter.
Credit Suisse Group AG is advising Halliburton on the talks while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is advising Baker Hughes, one of the people said. Representatives for both banks declined to comment.

Sumber : Bloomberg

OPEC Diplomacy Picks Up With Iraq-to-Libya Chiefs

OPEC producers are stepping up their diplomatic visits before the group’s meeting in two weeks, potentially seeking a consensus on how to react to oil prices that have plunged to a four-year low.
Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani flew to Riyadh yesterday just as Iraqi President Fouad Masoum left the kingdom after a two-day visit where he met with King Abdullah, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s foreign minister and representative to OPEC, held talks in Algeria and Qatar. Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi toured Latin America.
“The Saudis will not walk the road alone, they want to see everyone share the burden with them,” Kuwait-based analyst Kamel al-Harami said by phone. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is trying to build consensus among fellow members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries before they meet Nov. 27 in Vienna, he said.
West Texas Intermediate is poised for the longest run of weekly declines in almost three decades amid speculation that OPEC will refrain from cutting output to ease concern of a supply glut. WTI added 8 cents to $74.29 a barrel and Brent gained 0.4 percent to $78.20 at 11:01 a.m. in London.

Photographer: Yasser al-Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, seen here, toured Latin America.

Falling oil prices are straining state budgets among OPEC members, including Iraq’s government, which is leading a costly war against Islamist militants, and Libya that is struggling to keep crude output steady amid political divisions and violence.

Iran’s Message

Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency said Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the nation’s oil minister, delivered a message to Kuwait on behalf of President Hassan Rouhani. Zanganeh briefed Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al Sabah on developments in oil markets, the agency said. He also went to Qatar, IRNA reported.
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro said he’d sent Ramirez to five countries, according to a televised address from Caracas.
“We are in a campaign to defend Venezuela, Venezuelan oil, international markets and the price of oil,” Maduro was cited as saying yesterday. “Oil sustains the development of our economic and social life.”
Ramirez met with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, with both nations reaffirming a joint position to defend prices, state-run news agency Algeria Press Service reported.
He also went to Qatar where he discussed crude prices and stability of oil markets with the Middle East country’s Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani and Energy Minister Mohammed Bin Saleh Al Sada yesterday in Doha, Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement. He’s also is scheduled to travel to Iran and Russia, according to the ministry, while Maduro said the trip would include Mexico.

Photographer: Ashraf Shazly/AFP via Getty Images

Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, seen here, flew to Riyadh yesterday.

All or Nothing

Saudi Arabia remains committed to seeking a stable oil prices and speculation of a battle between crude producers has no basis, Al-Naimi said Nov. 12 in Mexico after a visit to Venezuela.
OPEC members Libya, Venezuela and Ecuador have called for action to prevent crude from falling further. Libya’s OPEC governor Samir Kamal said last month that the group must cut daily output by 500,000 barrels as the market is oversupplied by about 1 million barrels a day. This reflected his personal view, he said at the time.
“They can all come to Saudi Arabia and ask the Saudis to support oil prices, but that will not change anything,” al-Harami said. “At the next meeting, Al-Naimi will look for a cut by all the members and if he doesn’t get it, nothing will change.”

Sumber : Bloomberg