By MASOOD FARIVAR
April 17, 2007; Page C2
Near-term crude futures rebounded from an early decline and ended largely unchanged, strengthening relative to longer-term contracts, as a major U.S. oil refinery restarted.
The May crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $63.61 a barrel, down two cents, after falling as low as $62.55 a barrel.
Valero Energy Corp. said it had begun partial operations at its fire-damaged McKee refinery in Sunray, Texas. The outage had cut demand for crude, lifting inventories to record levels and causing May crude futures to trade at a discount of more than $3 to the June contract and more than $7 a barrel to North Sea Brent.
With McKee’s restart expected to lift demand, traders closed bets those price differences would widen. As a result, the spread between crude futures for May and June delivery narrowed to less than $1.80 a barrel at one point Monday from $2.70 Friday.
“The May WTI got pounded so far relative to everything else that now, within a week of expiration, you’re seeing a lot of spread unwinding,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of consulting firm Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Ill. The May crude-oil contract expires Friday.
May reformulated-gasoline blendstock futures fell 6.40 cents, or 2.9%, to $2.1157 a gallon, posting their biggest daily decline in dollar terms since Jan. 3.
“A lot of people see the restart of McKee as a sign that we’ll have enough refining capacity to meet demand this summer,” said Peter Beutel, an analyst at trading advisory firm Cameron Hanover in New Canaan, Conn.
Also pressing petroleum was the expectation that supplies of Nigerian crude would rise in coming months. Nigerian joint venture Shell Petroleum Development Co. was expected to restore production of Forcados crude to normal levels by mid-June after more than a year of civil unrest, West African crude traders said.
In other commodity markets:
GOLD: Prices rose, supported by a softer dollar and physical buying. Nearby April rose $4.70 an ounce to $690.10, while most-active June gold gained $4.60 to $694.50 on the Comex division of Nymex.
NATURAL GAS: Futures extended losses for the second session on expectations warmer weather in the Northeast and Midwest would cut demand. The May contract settled 27.1 cents lower at $7.53 a million British thermal units.
Write to Masood Farivar at [email protected]
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
