Record Oil Prices Seen Pumping Up Independents' Earnings.

Oil Daily, The, July, 2004 by Andrew Kelly

HOUSTON -- Record crude oil prices will help US exploration and production companies report solid second-quarter earnings, with gas prices playing a less important role this time around.

Natural gas prices have been the main driver behind earnings increases for most of the last year and a half, but crude stole the show during the April-June quarter.

Nymex light sweet crude futures averaged $38.28 per barrel, an increase of 32.4% versus the same period of 2003, as violence in Saudi Arabia and Iraq kept prices at their highest level since crude futures started trading on Nymex in 1983.

Gas prices were also firm as supplies of the clean-burning fuel remained tight in North America. With an average price of $6.16 per thousand cubic feet, Nymex gas...