Oil stocks cling to slim gains, gas falls. Oil stocks clung to slim gains Thursday while natural-gas and oil service stocks turned negative, hit by a bout of profit-taking on the previous session's strong advance.
None of the moves was major, however, with the market jostling within a narrow trading band as the market awaits FED Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech Friday at Jackson Hole, Wyo., which investors are hoping will shed some light on interest rate policy and the tightening credit market.
By mid-afternoon, the Amex Oil Index (XOI: 1,348.33, +1.94, +0.1%) was ahead 0.3% at 1,350 points, led by refiner Sunoco Inc.'s ( SUN:72.25, +0.95, +1.3%) 1.3% rise to $72.27 a share in relatively light volume. Among the top integrated U.S. oil companies in the index, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM:85.40, +0.17, +0.2%) was up 0.8% at $85.88 a share, Chevron Corp. (CVX:87.19, +0.49, +0.6%) was up 0.7% at $87.31, and ConocoPhillips (COP:81.29, -0.48, -0.6%) was off 0.5% at $81.37.
Chevron, still struggling to restore a fire-damaged crude processing unit at its Pascagoula, Miss., refinery, issued a statement saying that the plant continues to run at reduced capacity, but that it expects to fully meet delivery commitments to customers.
The company also said it may need to cancel or divert crude shipments to its other refineries until it corrects the problem. It reportedly declared force majeure on a shipment of Venezuelan crude to the refinery earlier this week. The Amex Natural Gas Index (XNG:471.24, -3.31, -0.7%) was off 0.6% at 471.5 points and the Philadelphia Oil Service Index ($OSX:268.45, -0.86, -0.3%) was down 0.6% at 267.7 points, both backing down from strong gains Wednesday.
Energy equities were getting little support from the commodities market, where October crude-oil futures were heading for a lower close but still managing to keep their head above the $73-a-barrel mark.
Natural-gas for October delivery was up 1.2% at $5.65 per million British thermal units following the latest Energy Department supply report, but the same data also showed gas inventories are already a potentially bearish 11.9% above the 5-year average for this time of year, well before the onslaught of the winter heating season.
Noble Energy Inc. (NBL:59.22, -1.87, -3.1%) was the hardest hit of the natural-gas stocks, down 3% at $59.22 a share.
by Jim Jelter
Amex Oil Index,U.S. oil companies,Energy equities,ExxonMobil,SUNOCO,Venezuela,ConocoPhillips,energy stocks,Chevron,Jackson Hole,Noble Energy,energyblog
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