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Oil prices inch up after new cuts in Nigeria
AFP
NEW YORK
Petroleumworld.com 03 25 06World oil prices crept higher on Friday over supply concerns sparked by new outages in Nigeria, Africa's biggest producer of crude, caused by rebel attacks.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, rose 35 cents to close at 64.26 dollars a barrel.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for May delivery inched up 24 cents to end at 63.51 dollars a barrel.
The Italian oil giant ENI warned customers Friday that it might not be able to honour some export contracts after an attack on one of the firm's Nigerian pipelines.
A spokesman told AFP from Rome that a March 17 bomb attack on the Tebidaba to Brass pipeline had cut production in the southern Niger Delta by 75,000 barrels per day, 13,000 of them belonging to ENI's subsidiary Agip.
This brings Nigeria's total losses since a renewed campaign of violence against the oil industry to 533,000 barrels per day, according to an AFP tally of reports from oil majors, more than a fifth of the country's output.
The ENI spokesman said the firm hoped to repair the pipeline by the end of the month, but in the meantime had declared "force majeure" in order to avoid paying damages to clients waiting for crude at the Brass export terminal.
"The expectations of lower exports from Nigeria, after a pipeline was bombed, and unseasonally cold weather (in the United States) also helped to move oil higher," BMO Nesbitt Burns senior economist Bart Melek said.
"Oil prices should remain high while these factors work their way out of the market," he said.
There are also supply concerns in Iran, Iraq and Venezuela, just as US crude stockpiles have begun to fall heading into the summer's peak season for gasoline demand in the United States.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) said on Wednesday that US gasoline stocks had fallen by 2.3 million barrels last week to 221.6 million barrels. Analysts had expected them to fall by only 1.0 million barrels.
The fall in gasoline or petrol stocks was particularly bullish for the market as the US summer driving season approaches in late May, analysts said.
The DoE also said that crude oil inventories sank by 1.3 million barrels last week.
The news took analysts by surprise as they had pencilled in a rise of 2.8 million barrels.
The dip marked the first time US crude supplies had fallen since early February.
However, they remain nearly 9.0 percent above their levels a year ago.
"The market has suddenly become a little more aware of the fact that world capacity is precarious, at best," Fimat analyst Mike Fitzpatrick said.
"The ageing (US) refinery infrastructure is almost guaranteed to produce more serious glitches down the road," he added.
- 03/24/2006 16:54 - AFPCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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