Crude Oil consolidates above $95 a barrel (USO, UHN, UNG, TRP, WLT, RIO, BHP, CVX, RIG, XOM, NBR, NE, CHK, PDS, HAL)

Published on Thursday, 15 December 2011 12:26 Written by Paul Oldrini

  New York, December 15th (TradersHuddle.com) – Crude oil futures recovered a bit on Thursday to trade above its key technical support of $95 a barrel after posting a sharp fall in the previous trading session as euro zone crisis fears pulled euro below $1.30 against the dollar.

Crude oil for January added 21 cents or 0.225 to $95.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange., after moving within an intraday range of $94.67 and $95.99. It was down over 55 in the previous trading session.

Crude oil was supported by weak dollar and better-than-estimated manufacturing levels in the Philadelphia area. A gauge of manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia area added 10.3 in December, from 3.6 in the previous month, well ahead of analysts’ estimates of a rise of 5.

On Wednesday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to maintain its current production at 30 million barrels per day, including restored output from Libya.

Among other energy products, the January heating oil added 3 cents, or 1.1%, to $2.86 a gallon. Gasoline for delivery in the same month surged 2 cents, or 0.52%, to $2.85 a gallon. January natural-gas futures climbed 4 cents or 1.40% to $3.17 per million British thermal units after weekly inventories report which showed a decline of 102 billion cubic feet in the week ended Dec. 9.

United States Oil Fund LP (ETF)  (NYSE:USO) slumped 0.20 (-0.55%) to $36.46. United States Heating Oil Fund, LP (NYSE:UHN) lost 0.10 (-0.33%) to $32.88. United States Natural Gas Fund, LP  (NYSE:UNG) added 0.05 (0.72%) to $6.96.

TransCanada  (NYSE:TRP) shares added 1.27% to $41.51 after the company announced it landed additional commitments to Keystone XL after its open season. The company added that now it has ability to boost its capacity into the Houston refining market to 830K barrels per day.

Walter Energy (NYSE:WLT) added 0.27% to $62.50 following a reports from Daily Mail that the company could be an acquisition target Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) or BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP).Shares of RIO and BHP are trading with marginal loss.

Chevron (NYSE:CVX) continued to slid after falling over 3% in yesterday’s session. The company late Wednesday clarified that it hasn’t received any official notice of a Brazilian lawsuit against the oil giant and Transocean  (NYSE:RIG) related to $10.7 billion in damages from an oil spill last month (earlier).

Shares of some oil drilling companies jumped including Noble  (NYSE:NE) up 0.07% to $30.71, Nabors Industries (NYSE:NBR) rose 0.37% to $16.48 and Precision Drilling  (NYSE:PDS) climbed 1.61%.

Exxon Mobil Corporation(NYSE:XOM), the Dow component, jumped 0.87% to $80.11 and some of the top S&P 500’s top performers are Chesapeake Energy Corporation(NYSE:CHK) increased 1.42%, Halliburton Company(NYSE:HAL) edged up 0.90%.