OilGlut posts

Feed

OPEC cuts oil output. Price drops. Why?

OPEC announced that it would cut production by 2.2 million barrels per day or 7%, in an effort to shore up the market. Is it working? We just need to look at the price of light sweet crude this morning, which is $33.06 -- down $3.00. Instead of raising the price of oil, it seems that the cuts have had little effect.

This is somewhat confusing, but there is a logical explanation. We have a glut of oil swishing all over the world. In fact, storage has become so tight that oil is now being stored in large tanker ships off shore. If we look at the forward contracts in light sweet crude we have what is call a contango. A contango is when the nearest contract is selling at a discount to more distant contracts. It translates into an excess of oil in the spot market. Until some of this excess oil is worked off the market, prices will tend to hover at these low levels.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-89.2312,801.23
NASDAQ-23.352,903.88
S&P 500-9.311,342.64

Last updated: February 11, 2012: 01:45 AM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

18.875-0.255(-1.33)

Alcoa

10.29-0.35(-3.29)

Apple Inc

493.42+0.25(+0.05)

Google Inc 'A'

605.91-5.55(-0.91)

Bank of America

8.07-0.11(-1.34)

Wal-Mart Stores

61.90-0.06(-0.10)

Exxon Mobil Corp

83.80-1.08(-1.27)

Ford

12.44-0.25(-1.97)

Citigroup

32.925-0.735(-2.18)

IBM

192.42-0.71(-0.37)

Yahoo

16.14+0.14(+0.88)

Starbucks

48.82-0.38(-0.77)

Microsoft

30.495-0.275(-0.89)

Home Depot

45.33+0.06(+0.13)

DailyFinance Headlines

AOL Business News

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

Page Loaded in 1328942708924 ms.