Shares of Rentech (AMEX:RTK) are soaring today as word spreads about the company’s latest deal. Shares have more than doubled in less than two weeks.
I had the unique opportunity to tour two different oil sands operations near Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta. I saw a massive open-pit oil sands mine, and the associated reclamation effort, operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd. I also visited an in situ oil sands recovery project called Surmont, operated by ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP).
I’ve been surprised over the past few weeks by the pace of biofuel development. These aren’t breakthroughs that are likely to produce obvious winners in the next few months, but the time line keeps pulling in. There’s a lot of skepticism about this technology, but there was also skepticism for every major tech development of the last three or four decades.
The oil price is stubborn, like a two-year-old who refuses to eat his mashed peas. Despite all evidence that the market is well supplied, oil is over $70 a barrel again as I write. Taking the view out to the horizon, though, I think it will go higher and will drag the price of most commodities higher in its wake.
Since the stock market bottomed out in March, the Nasdaq 100 index has led the way forward, with a 55% rally, with the Dow and S&P 500 not far behind.
Do you remember this time last year? As spring turned to summer, energy prices were moving upward. By mid-July 2008, oil prices peaked at $147 per barrel. But as with Gen. Pickett and his famous charge at Gettysburg, that lofty level of $147 was the high-water mark for oil prices.
Oil rose more than $2 to hit a one-month high near $72 on Monday as positive Chinese economic data and firmer equities bolstered hopes of economic recovery and higher energy demand.
In late January, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the world’s most ubiquitous oil giant, capped off a whipsaw year in the global oil markets by reporting net income of $45.2 billion, an all-time record for corporate profits that shattered the former record it had set a year before.
It’s not without some sort of satisfaction that many consumers react to the news that earning reports from oil companies have been dismal. After all, these companies have been making money off us hand over fist for quite some time.
Oil fell below $66 on Friday, in line with broad falls on global markets after data showing the U.S. economy contracted and consumer spending had declined, with knock-on effects for fuel demand.
