Record Oil prices as Chinese Stock Market hits record high

On the back of a report by the International Energy Agency which forecast oil demand growth will grow more quickly in 2008 than this year, U.S. Energy Department's weekly supply report showed several things that has affected the global energy markets today ;

1. Imports of gasoline rose by 737,000 barrels a day to an average of 1.65 million barrels per day last week, the highest weekly average ever.

2. US Refinery utilization grew by 0.7 % to 91.7 % and gasoline inventories grew by 800,000 barrels in the week ended July 20.

3. There was 1.4 million barrel decline in oil inventories in and around the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for crude traded on NYMEX

As a consequence ....

Texas Light, sweet crude for September delivery on NYMEX rose 98 cents to $76.86 a barrel in electronic trading by midday in Europe. The contract had risen $2.32 to $75.88 on Wednesday.

September Brent crude settled at US$77.57 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.(US$1 off Aug 2006 all time record of US$78.65). An increasing concern is damage to the North Sea Central Area Transmission System (CATS) gas pipeline,which shut on July 1 after its conrete casing was damaged by a ship's anchor near Teesside port. Divers are inspecting the damage and operators BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward also told a news conference that it would be a number of weeks before repairs would be complete.As gas cannot be extracted this also affects oil production.

The 404 Km seabed CATS pipeline brigs gas ashore at Teesside from the Armada, Seymour, North Everest, Banff, Eastern Trough Area Project, J-Block, Lomond and Erskine fields U.K. gas network operator National Grid PLC NGG. The pipe has previously been delivering gas at a rate of just over 40 Mn cubic metres a week.

NYMEX heating oil rose 1.52 cent to $2.0811 a gallon while gasoline futures gained 2.16 cents to $2.1095 a gallon. Natural gas prices added 4.5 cents to $5.970 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Meanwhile ....

In China the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 22.49 points, or 0.52 %, to close at a record 4,346.46 this index has risen more than 62 % so far this year and 14 % since July 1st after more than doubling in 2006.

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)announced this week that China's gross domestic product soared 11.9% in the Q2 2007, up 0.8% on Q1 growth of 11.1%. China is on track to overtake Germany as the third-largest economy worldwide.