Surprised to See Jump in Price of Oil; Wells Coming Off Confidential List Have Been Posted

With the build in gasoline and oil inventories yesterday, and all the talk of the price of oil bottoming out this summer, I was surprised to see "oil" up about a buck this morning.

The only two things I am aware of that might explain some of this is the Bank of England and the European Central Bank leaving interest rates the same, and the delay of the swearing in of Mr Chavez. [Later: probably the news coming out of China.] The Seaway will come on-line in a day or two, but that's been talked about for quite some time and shouldn't have this effect on Brent.

Wells coming off the confidential list have been posted.  Denbury and Slawson each have a nice well.

RBN Energy: power burn economics; the switch from coal to natural gas; how did RBN's hypothesis work out for 2012?

Back in July 2012 we took a detailed look at power generation economics to improve our understanding of the circumstances when coal-to-gas switching can happen (see Talkin’ Bout My Generation Part I and Part II). Our hypothesis then was that plant fuel costs determine whether coal-to-gas switching is economic. Plant fuel costs are calculated based on the efficiency of a generating asset not just the underlying price of coal or natural gas. We are going to recap that analysis here and then look at the complete 2012 data to see if our hypothesis panned out.