Red-Hot Resources

"Luck is not chance, it’s toil; fortune’s expensive smile is earned.”

Monday, September 08, 2008

Monday Morning Charts

It’s really make-or-break time for the CRB. That said, the 61% retracement is a good place to bounce, and pullback to this level is quite normal in a commodity bull market.

Oil should be bouncing a lot more than it is with a Category 3 hurricane headed toward Energy Alley. This is indicative of the extreme pessimism in the market right now. Let’s see how the week plays out.

Gold also isn’t getting much of a break despite news of a big ramp-up in buying in India. Hmm …

Here is some news you can use.

OIL

Oil Rebounds From Five-Month Low as Ike Nears; Gold, Wheat, Copper Gain Crude oil and copper led gains in commodities as Hurricane Ike threatened rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. government's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bolstered investors' expectations for growth.

Mexico Government Will Probably Set Oil Price at $80 Per Barrel in Budget Mexico, the second-biggest oil producer in the Western Hemisphere, will probably assume its crude exports will sell for $80 a barrel next year in a budget proposal the government plans to submit to Congress today.

OPEC to Pump Near Record Amounts of Crude as $106 Oil Price Stunts Growth OPEC, the supplier of 40 percent of the world's oil, will probably keep producing at a near record pace as $107-a-barrel crude squeezes the global economy.

Saudi crude price hikes may offer OPEC production hints

Its latest term crude prices suggest state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Saudi Aramco), may be starting to price in a period of lower output, even if OPEC next week doesn’t formally sign off on a production cut.

NATURAL GAS

Origin Says $8 Billion Conoco Gas Agreement Justifies Rejection of BG Bid Origin Energy Ltd., Australia's biggest producer of natural gas from coal seams, said an $8 billion transaction with ConocoPhillips ``more than justifies'' its rejection of a hostile takeover offer from BG Group Plc.

XX Sean’s note: Red-Hot Global Small Caps subscribers have one of these Aussie coal-seam gas companies in their portfolio – and it shot up 30% today, the biggest move in 3 ½ years. Why? Because this Origin deal is upping the ante on Australian coal-seam gas.

URANIUM

Energy, Toro Shares Rise in Sydney on Optimism Uranium Mining Ban May End Energy & Minerals Australia Ltd. and Toro Energy Ltd. led gains by uranium explorers in Western Australia on optimism the Liberal Party may win government after the weekend's state election and allow mining of the nuclear fuel.

US ECONOMY

Weekend Bailouts and Subsequent Market Reactions

Three observations/questions/takeaways from the past of weekend rescues history:

1. A strong rally lasts for a while, but it eventually fades and makes a new lower low; Each rally has been shorter in duration and weaker in intensity than the previous one;

2. The pre-Asian open news pattern reveals the Asset price focus is a large part of these issues;

3. What form of free markets have we evolved into? Its not Capitalism, its not Socialism, its not intelligent regulation. WTF is this??

Bank Insiders Step Up Purchases of Their Own Stock to Most in Two Decades Bank and savings and loan insiders spent more money buying shares of their companies in May, June and July this year than in any previous three months in at least two decades, betting that financial institutions are bouncing back from the credit-market crunch.

Paulson Bets He Can Do What Eluded Fed: Get Banks to Lend in Down Economy Henry Paulson is making a colossal bet that the U.S. Treasury can do what Ben S. Bernanke's Federal Reserve failed to do: Get banks to lend more freely when the deteriorating economy is still telling them to hold back.

GOLD

India’s gold imports jump 45%

India’s gold imports in August jumped 45 percent from a year ago, the first annual rise this year, as lower prices and upcoming festivals drove demand in the world’s leading consumer, a trade body chief said.

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Thursday, September 04, 2008

At the Intersection of Cantarell and HoweStreet

I talked to Phil at HoweStreet.com yesterday. You can listen HERE.

And yesterday in MoneyandMarkets.com I wrote about Mexico’s supergiant oil field, Cantarell, which is in some serious trouble. Here’s that …

A Storm Called Cantarell
by Sean Brodrick Wednesday, September 03, 2008 7:30 AM
The oil industry along the Louisiana coast got off lightly from Hurricane Gustav. While 1.3 million barrels of oil and seven billion cubic feet of natural gas per day stopped pumping temporarily, ... [More...]

XX Sean’s note: After I published that story, I then found another story on Mexican oil woes. It’s interesting …

Cantarell Is Not Mexico's Only Oil Production Problem
There are problems in two other large oil fields, the Chicontepec Basin and Ku-MaloobZaap. These two fields make up 72% of Mexico's non-Cantarell proven reserves. The fields differ significantly from Cantarell in terms of geology, potential productivity, distance from distribution systems, and technical requirements.

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Friday, April 13, 2007

My latest Market Matters Radio Interview

It's always great to talk to Tom Jeffries. He and I talk about Mexico, peak oil, uranium and more. To listen, point your web brower here: http://tinyurl.com/2w8xjn

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Friday, February 02, 2007

The Coming Crash at Cantarell

The Wall Street Journal reported last week (I'm adding emphasis in bold)...

Daily output at Mexico's biggest oil field tumbled by half a million barrels last year, according to figures released Friday by the Mexican government. The ongoing decline at the Cantarell field could pressure prices on the global oil market, complicate U.S. efforts to diversify its oil imports away from the Middle East, and threaten Mexico's financial stability.

The virtual collapse at Cantarell -- the world's second-biggest oil field in terms of output at the start of last year -- is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. Cantarell's daily output fell to 1.5 million barrels in December compared to 1.99 million barrels in January, according to figures from the Mexican Energy Ministry.

XX My take -- if you think illegal immigrants from Mexico are flooding across our border now, you just wait until that Cantarell revenue starts to dry up.

Read the rest of the story by CLICKING HERE.

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

One last fling with Mexican silver

I should have put this link up yesterday, but I'm dragging ass from a terrible cold and I'm wrapping up a new report on ETFs. Anyway, here is yesterday's piece for MoneyandMarkets.com: We're trying to spice up the headlines, so this one is called "Sizzling Silver Miners Down South." It should be my last piece on Mexican silver mines for awhile. Read it HERE.
And here's your verdant photo for the day ... a snapshot I took flying over the Sierra Madre.

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