Oil futures for WTI are now down $1.51 to $48.37. 2019 may not be a good year for the oil patch, at least for all of you office workers.
37 replies (most recent on top)
You never know, a slow steady increase is more economically sound than a pop into unrealistic territory, which is what it was when near $100/bbl. The $60's & $70's will be that much more appreciated and respected if/when that ever happens again.
I am amazed that fortunes now boil down to iPhone sales. Yes uncertainty seems to rule. And yes death is predictable. It will happen. When is another question.
Could be an excellent year for the new stock grants if CVX price continues to dip to end of Jan. 2016 was the last year of super grants.
@fvdk, I don’t know about you, but for me, MOST things in my life are predictable and certain. I plan my financial affairs very well and seldom have I had any surprises. As for death, that’s unpredictable for everyone.
Most things in life are uncertain. The only things certain are death and taxes, right?
Another market sell-off to start the new year. Uncertainty is everywhere. DOW futures are currently down 344 points and WTI is down 50 cents to $44.91 as I write this. Have a happy new year.
Two hours after opening bell on Dec 31. Oil is down again. Natural gas is down 7.5% to just above $3. I enjoy watching my GasBuddy app to see gasoline prices going down every week. I look forward to natural gas prices to go down well below $3 before having to renew my electricity provider contract in late March. As a retiree in Houston, I see energy prices as low and going lower.
It was nice to see the oil price rally today, but the reality is, the oil price increase was a ride-a-long side effect of the market today. Fundamentally, surplus production is the current norm. I expect oil price to do the slow drip back down to $42 or lower.
CVX getting sacked at 15 minutes before close on December 24. Just $1 more of a hit and we’ll be below $100. Not a good way to end 2018. Was anyone saying there will be a bonus this year? That statement will need revision.
The CAPEX budget will definitely be revised downwards, that or Employee OPEX, aka Payroll, will be scaled back through forced attrition. Do I hear music playing in the background?
The price of WTI is back at the level of late October 2015. Chevron announced very recently a CAPEX of $20 billion for next year. Want to bet that it will be revised down?
WTI now at $42.46, down over 6%.
WTI at $44.75 on December 24 morning. Merry Christmas. New Year below $40.
@3gpp, your 401k and others’ IRA balance may have taken a trip back to September 2017, but hold on steady to your shares. The number of shares you own haven’t taken a trip back to 2017. Their value will eventually go back to where it was before the downturn. If you sell them out of fear or desperation, you will be the loser. They rich investor will only buy up the cheap shares and get richer. So is the way in the stock market. If you can, stay the course and you’ll be rewarded with a return to good fortune.
WTI closed at $45.42 on Friday and go lower before a stable bottom is reached. To all of you laid off, and soon to be laid off chevroids, no one cared about you when you lost your job, but the entire media complex is going nuts over the poor Federal employees who might, but have not yet, not get paid because of a 'partial ' government shut down. Remember that government primarily cares about itself and the whims of the private sector are, well, the price you pay for being employed in the private sector. This is not to be taken as a political statement. Just the way things are.
@4ied, It’s the office workers, namely its management, who decide the fate of what goes on in the field. Don’t be too quick to insult them. They are the hand the feeds them.
Who cares about office workers who master the art of looking busy and pretending they know what they’re talking about.
My 401k has taken a time trip back to September 2017.
$44. Woot woot!
The Total Final Collapse is going on right now! Where are those mo--ns who laughed some time ago? Run away from cities to forests if you want to survive!
Dotard is what Kim Jong Un famously called Trump. I am just a bystander on this thread but the question was asked so just wanted to clarify.
The trade war/tariff actions against China are a good thing. It should have been done a long time ago, but the new world order trade treaty globalists in our government have allowed China to use this country to advance their own industries and military at our expense.
The price of oil and Chevron stock got kicked in the nuts again today. Global economic slowdown is causing oil and related industries to contract. It’s not just the Fed rate hike causing this. After all, interest rates in the U.S. have been ultra low for way too long. They must go up. I only wish not as aggressively. My thoughts are it’s being done to hurt Trump’s chances of re-election in 2020. Meanwhile, the average citizen will pay the price as usual.
WTI now at $45.98, down 4.55%. This is more than just supply/demand - you can thank the Federal reserve for some of this.
You are absolutely correct in your statement. Once you permanently leave the industry, you don't care how low the price of oil goes. In fact, the lower the better.
Here’s my wisdom- I’m retired and no longer working for Chevron. I enjoy paying the low gas prices at the pump and look forward to seeing it go down even more.
Mark my words, by mid-year oil will pass $60 climbing at a good pace and the news will be buzzing (wrongly) about the return of $100 oil. If there is one lesson about oil prices that would be learned, it is those who assume the current trend will last are wrong. It is cyclic! If it is up, then it is about to crash and down it will soon rocket skywards
So there is a news article on CNBC that states Midland-based WTI (Permian Basin) is trading at a $7.25-$7.60 discount to WTI benchmark price which is based on deliveries from the storage facilities at Cushing, Oklahoma. That will put the Permian crude oil price at around $40/barrel and will result in less new exploration/production holes being drilled. The main reason is a shortage of pipeline deliverable infrastructure for Permian Basin crude oil. Since Chevron is heavily invested in this basin, this will just add another big dent in profit margin, along with many of the other Permian Basin oil producers. Just what the domestic industry needs (sarcasm). If you are young and can use your skills in another line of gainful employment, then start looking and cover your rear.
I totally agree. Nobody cares about the other guy or the greater good. It is all about me. But I would like to add one thought. There are countries whose GDP is driven by oil revenue and they have realized that the reserves they are sitting on, while valuable at the moment, may be near worthless in a few decades. So get the cash now rather than leave it underground forever.
@1zrp, there’s sometimes no logic. Producing nations pump more because their countries have expensive budgets and social programs to continue funding, otherwise they are voted out of power in the more civil countries or receive a worse fate in less civil ones. There are other reasons to keep pumping more oil, but the reasons will range from one country to another. It’s usually rooted in selfishness and greed.
The oil producers keep pumping more oil so the price goes down due to greed and oversupply. Then the industry goes into a downturn and people lose their jobs or take a pay cut. So where’s the logic for pumping more. Why not pump less before you get into a mess.
Oil goes down and stays down for a longer period because producers look to make up the losses by pumping more of it, which in turn only oversupplies the market and causes prices to remain low. There’s so many oil producing nations and many are outside the control of OPEC, namely the United States, Russia and Qatar (soon to quit the oil cartel).
Obviously, when it goes down too much and stays there layoffs are not far behind. Remember 2015-2016?
The only two things you oilies write repetitiously about are oil is going up or oil is going down. Can’t you write about something else. No need to write about why it’s going up or down because you so-called experts obviously don’t know.
This drop in oil price is just plain weird. Makes me think its nothing more than a puppet on a string.
WTI is now at $47/barrel. It could very well take most of 2019 to recover in the stock market, but really no one knows. Crude oil price could stay down a long time. At this rate of price decline, it will easily be below $40 by end of year. Who would have thought
It’s not only oil futures that’s going down. The stock market is also going down. This month of December is hitting a lot of investors hard. I don’t think 2019 will be that good either. At some point it will begin to turn around. The question is how long will it take to come back?