By Commodity News Service Canada
July 20 (CNS Canada) – The Canadian dollar dipped against its U.S. counterpart Thursday morning, but retained its year-long highs, as oil prices rose. The U.S. dollar, meanwhile, has shed value against a basket of international currencies.
The loonie was trading at 79.32 cents U.S. at 9:02 a.m. CDT (C$1.2607 per US$1). It closed yesterday’s session at 79.40 cents U.S. (C$1.2595 per US$1).
Brent crude oil is adding to gains from previous sessions, rising above US$50 per barrel for the first time in six weeks. The benchmark Brent futures stood at US$50.10 per barrel earlier this morning.
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WTI crude is at US$47.54 per barrel at 8:50 a.m. CDT, a 4.2 cents U.S. increase (.89%).
The energy heavy S&P/TSX index in Toronto was also up on early trading at 15,268.45. That’s a gain of 23.74 points, or .16%.
The S&P 500 was up 2.71 points (.11%) at 2,476.54, the Dow Jones was down .34 points (.00%) at 21,640,41 and the Nasdaq gained 5.94 points (.09%) at 6,390.98.
The Bank of Canada is expected to gradually trickle out interest rate increases, according to a Bloomberg survey of 16 economists. The bank will raise rates in October, then twice next year to bring its key overnight lending rate to 1.5 per cent, a median forecast of the economists suggests. Over the longer term, the median forecast from the survey states the Bank of Canada will continue to raise interest rates gradually until the final quarter of 2019, peaking at 2.5 per cent. The central bank’s key lending rate is currently 0.75 per cent.
Pipelines delivered 6.3 million cubic metres of crude oil to Canadian refineries in May, according to data released today by Statistics Canada. That’s up 16.2 per cent compared to May of 2016. Most of that, 61 per cent, was delivered to refineries in Western Canada, while the remainder went to Ontario and Quebec. StatsCan also reported that pipelines exported 14.7 million cubic metres of oil and other liquid petroleum products to the United States in May. Exports rose 15.7 per cent in May compared to May 2016. Imports rose 22.3 per cent to 2.7 million cubic metres year over year. Closing crude oil inventories totalled 11.3 cubic metres in May, a two per cent increase year over year.
