Jobless Claims Lift Oil Futures

Published on Thursday, 09 February 2012 16:06 Written by Todd Shriber

New York, February 9^th (TradersHuddle.com) – Another round of positive news on the employment helped lift oil futures today with NYMEX-traded crude for March delivery gaining $1.18, or 1.2%, to settle at $99.89 a barrel. Brent crude popped $1.19, or 1%, to close at $118.39 per barrel. Those gains were certainly helped by another week of lower initial jobless claims. New claims for jobless benefits fell by 15,000 last week to 358,000. Economists expected a small increase to 370,000 new claims. The four-week moving average fell by 11,000 to 366,250.

Of course, it’s next impossible to have a conversation about oil prices these days without mentioning Europe. Fortunately, the news out of Europe was fair to decent today as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Greek politicians have endorsed an austerity package that many expect will help the country avoid sovereign debt default. Investors still appear skeptical though as equities and other risky assets such as precious metals either suffered losses on the day or made only tepid gains.

In international oil news, OPEC member Venezuela, Latin America’s largest oil producer, said it foresees sending as much crude to China over the next three years as it does to the U.S. The U.S. is currently Venezuela’s largest oil customer. Venezuelan officials said crude exports to China currently hover around 460,000 barrels per day. The U.S. and China are the world’s two largest oil consumers.

There was good news among oil equities on "if you knew where to look" basis. In late trading, shares of California-based Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY), the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, were higher by half a percent after the company announced a 17% increase to its annual dividend. That will take Occidental’s payout to $2.16 per share, up from $1.84 per share. On a quarterly basis, that works out to be 54 cents a share.

The new dividend will be paid April 15 to shareholders of record as of March 9. Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX) are currently in the middle of multi-decade streaks of increased dividends, but Occidental is no slouch either. CEO Stephen Chazen said in a statement today that his company has boosted its payout every year for the past decade.

The dividend news helped Occidental be the star of among the U.S. integrateds for one day at least as Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips were all in the red in late trading. The independents appear to be where the real action is as Apache (NYSE: APA) was up 1.6% with just a few minutes to go in the trading day. Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) continues to impress as well. That stock is up 1.2% late and touched another new 52-week high today.