The EIA plans to release the Natural Gas Monthly for January sometime today. Keep fingers crossed.  The G20 has futures bolting higher and the dollar sagging so look for a green open.

In Today’s Post:

1.     Holdings Watch

2.     Commodity Watch

3.     Natural Gas Preview

4.     EIA Oil Inventory Review

5.     Stuff We Care About Today

6.     Odds & Ends

Holdings Watch: The Wiki and $10KP Tabs Have Been Updated.

• $10KP - Added 5 more of the CRK $35 April Calls for $0.30 with the stock off about $0.65 on no news. Thanks to Weisel for picking it up at Overweight this morning.

Commodity Watch

Crude oil fell $1.47 to close at $48.39 yesterday, gaining slightly from the time of the EIA inventory release to the close of NYMEX despite another bigger than expected build in crude stocks. In a nutshell, refining demand for crude remains at depressed levels (should turn up a bit soon) while imports have been creeping back up (should turn south again soon if the tanker trackers looking at OPEC April deliveries are close to the mark) leading to the big builds. But this is big build season and that’s not unexpected.  Inventories at Cusing, Oklahoma declined again despite a bigger than expected crude build leading one to surmise that imports from Canada are running light and/or volumes from the Bakken heading towards Oklahoma are off which would jive with recent statements by EOG. This morning crude is trading up $2.50+ on the back of G20 mania and a weaker dollar.

• Suncor Oil Price Comment: $40 oil is probably breakeven for their oil sands operation. "You can make a great return, double-digit, well above our cost of capital, in the high $40 to low $50 range".
• IEA Watch: Group confirms it is looking to lower its global crude demand forecast for 2009 in mid April.

Natural gas fell $0.08 to $3.70 yesterday in line with the move in oil.  This morning gas is trading up slightly in advance of storage and supply figures.

Natural Gas Inventory Preview:

• My number: -5 Bcf.
  • History:
    • Last Week: 3 Bcf Injection
    • Last Year: 30 Bcf Withdrawal
    • 5 Year Average: 11 Bcf Injection
  • Weather: 125 HDDs, up from the prior week’s 116 which gave us the 3 Bcf build.
  • Imports: down 0.3 Bcfgpd from the prior week and 1.3 Bcfgpd from year ago levels.
• Street Consensus: 0 Bcf

ZComment: Squishy numbers, could go either way today.