Oil and gas stocks were clinging to early gains Friday, riding a rebound in crude-oil prices and a pre-holiday advance by the broad stock market.
By midday the sector had backed off its opening highs but was still cruising toward a positive finish. The Amex Oil Index (XOI :1,357.14, +18.84, +1.4% ) was up 0.9%, the Amex Natural Gas Index (XNG : 506.65, +3.51, +0.7% ) was up 0.2%, and the Philadelphia Oil Service Index ($OSX : 248.12, +3.66, +1.5% ) , hardest hit of the three indexes in Thursday's sell-off, was up 0.9%. Refiner Valero Energy Corp. (VLO :74.75, +1.60, +2.2% ) was leading percentage gainers in the oil group, up 1.6% at $74.31 a share, with heavyweight Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM : 83.45, +1.17, +1.4% ) ahead 0.9% at $83.02 a share.
Chevron Corp. (CVX :80.87, +0.90, +1.1% ) announced it has agreed to sell the fuel marketing business it runs in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg to Delek Benelux BV for $460 million.
The deal, expected to close in the third quarter, includes 803 Texaco service stations, acquired in Chevron's $35 billion Texaco takeover in 2000, two fuel terminals, and stakes in several Dutch fuel retailers. Delek Benelux is a unit of Israel's Delek Petroleum.
Chevron shares were up 0.7% at $80.50.
Crude-oil for July delivery was ahead 38 cents at $64.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, lifted by fresh supply concerns following the kidnapping of six more workers on oil fields in Nigeria. June reformulated gasoline was last up 3.62 cents, or 1.5%, at $2.394 a gallon, not far off last Friday's close of $2.408. See Futures Movers.
Nymex is closed Monday for the Memorial Day holiday, which also marks the unofficial start of the summer driving season.
Motorists making an early getaway Friday will be facing record-high gasoline prices, a fact not lost on Congress, consumer advocates or overseas oil producers. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' head of research told Reuters that the producers group sees no need to boost output to help bring down lofty gasoline prices, pointing the finger instead at bottlenecks in the U.S. refining industry as the primary culprits.
Those bottlenecks are translating into record-high refining margins for the oil companies and anger at the pump. But industry analysts warn not to expect much to change the market's supply-demand fundamentals in the near-term, despite inflated rhetoric on either side of the issue. See Commodities Corner.
Meanwhile, the debate over global warming is generating plenty of heat among investors, with several groups of Exxon shareholders pitching to toss Michael Boskin off the company's board. They accuse Boskin, who chairs Exxon's public issues committee, of declining to meet with them to discuss the company's position on climate change. See full story.
In broker action, Calyon downgraded Apache Corp. (APA :78.04, +0.48, +0.6% ) to add from buy on valuation. The stock, already up 17% so far this year, was off 8 cents at $77.48 a share.
