Distillate pushes WTI high on storms concern

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained $1.69 to $61.28 per barrel on Wednesday, only 20 cents below its record high. The price of WTI was pushed up by distillate prices, which also rose Wednesday.

Nymex August gasoline rose 8.32 cents to $1.765 per gallon, an all-time high, and Nymex heating oil advanced by 4.36 cents to $1.776 per gallon.

Brent crude August contracts, meanwhile, were up by 90 cents to $59.19 per barrel. Gasoil his a record high of $559.75 per tonne, sending other energy prices up as well.

British natural gas prices for January gained 4 percent to £1 per therm, also a record high, taking electricity prices for winter 2005 up also, by 45p to £60.60 per megawatt hour.

Another factor in rising prices were tropical storms in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico which triggered fears of production interruptions and reinforced lingering concerns over fourth-quarter supplies of distillates such as heating oil.

Distillate prices also rose in response to a lack of spare refining capacity and took crude oil prices with them.

Meanwhile, OPEC oil production was up by 210,000 barrels in June to 30 million barrels per day thanks to increased supplies from Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates.

Additionally, when OPEC put off talks toward increasing output by 500,000 barrels per day above a similar increase set to begin this month, it claimed it would restart talks if oil again rose above $60 per barrel.

Now that the price has again topped that level, Iran has announced that its position is that talks should still not resume.