Oil
prices rebound
AFP
NEW YORK
Petroleumworld.com 01 27 06
World oil prices rose on Thursday as ongoing supply concerns,
notably in Nigeria, helped to reverse three days of losses, analysts
said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March,
climbed 41
cents to close at 66.26 dollars a barrel.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for March delivery
gained 69 cents to finish at 64.92 dollars a barrel.
WTRG Economics analyst Jim Williams said unusually warm winter
weather in the United States should be depressing oil demand at
the moment.
"The only thing holding prices anywhere near this level is
crude supply uncertainty from the problems in Nigeria and Iran
coupled with the lack of spare capacity," he said.
Prices had closed down more than a dollar on both sides of the
Atlantic on Wednesday when data revealed a jump in stockpiles
of gasoline and distillates in the United States.
But the abduction of four foreign workers combined with a series
of deadly strikes against oil plants in Nigeria over the past
three weeks has raised tensions in Africa's biggest oil producer.
Since the kidnapping, armed gangs have blown up a major oil pipeline
and attacked two oil facilities, killing a total of 22 police
officers and soldiers and three Nigerian oil workers. It is not
clear if the attacks are linked.
Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has cut production
by 221,000 barrels since the start of the crisis, depriving the
oil market of a large quantity of highly prized light sweet crude.
Nigeria's oil minister Edmund Daukoru, who is also president of
the OPEC cartel, reportedly said at the World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland, that it would take at least a month to repair
the damaged infrastructure.
The rebound in prices Thursday came after they closed down 1.21
dollars in New York and 1.11 dollars in London on Wednesday.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) revealed Wednesday that stockpiles
of distillate products, used to make heating fuel and diesel,
had climbed by 1.8 million barrels to 136.5 million in the week
ending January 20.
Stockpiles of motor gasoline, or petrol, had increased by 3.2
million barrels over the week to 214.8 million. The rises for
distillates and gasoline in the United States, the world's biggest
consumer of energy, had been almost triple analysts' consensus
forecasts.
The data also revealed that US crude stocks had fallen 2.3 million
barrels to total 319.1 million barrels.
Oil prices in New York are now around 3.0 dollars below their
level on Monday, when crude futures soared to 69.20 dollars per
barrel on global supply concerns linked also to the crisis over
Iran's nuclear ambitions.
That price level, the highest in more than four months, later
fell on profit-taking. Other factors weighing on prices have been
an offer from Saudi Arabia to supply more crude if necessary and
an easing of tensions in Iran.
AFP
01/26/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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