World
  |
|
Oil prices above 60 dollars in Asian trade
AFP
SINGAPORE
Petroleumworld.com 02 23 06Oil prices traded above the key 60 dollar a barrel mark in Asian trade Friday in a market focussed on higher-than-expected falls in some US energy inventories, dealers said.
At 1:50 pm (0550 GMT) New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, dropped nine cents to 60.86 dollars a barrel after advancing 88 cents to 60.95 dollars a barrel in late US trades.
The contract finished above 60 dollars for the first time this year on Wednesday.
Brent North Sea crude for April delivery was up one cent to 60.63 dollars a barrel.
The jump in prices was driven by the unexpected sharp falls in US energy stockpiles, said Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo.
"The data was quite bullish. Demand for gasoline is up... inventories data for gasoline, heating oil and crude were all down. The big draw-down did spike prices up," he said, forecasting that prices will stay in the 57-62 dollar range.
"We would need other factors to push prices above 62 dollars," he said.
Thursday's weekly inventory report from the United States Department of Energy (DoE) showed that US crude oil reserves surged by 3.7 million barrels in the week ending February 16 to 327.6 million barrels.
Analysts had predicted a gain in crude of just 1.3 million barrels.
But the report also showed that distillates, which include heating oil, fell 5.0 million barrels to 128.3 million as a cold spell gripped the United States.
Market watchers expected a smaller distillates drop of 2.88 million barrels, but the DoE noted that their levels "are at the upper end of the average range for this time of year."
Gasoline inventories fell 3.1 million barrels last week to 222.1 million, but, according to the government, they remain well above the seasonal average.
"The demand level for gasoline is higher than last year. It's quite an important factor supporting the gains too," Emori said.
A number of outages have occurred in the US oil industry including a warning by Valero Energy Corp of a prolonged shutdown at a fire-hit refinery in Texas.
"Given the strong demand we're seeing from the (inventories) data, the market continues to react strongly to any supply chain-related issue," Fimat analyst John Kilduff said in US trading hours.
Valero, the largest US refiner with an output of 170,000 barrels per day, has said its McKee refinery in west Texas could be shut for weeks.
Prices had also gained from news that a Teppco pipeline supplying the US northeast with gasoline and diesel had been closed owing to a spill.
Another boost to prices came from a Thursday report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which declared that Iran, one of the world's biggest producers of crude, had failed to suspend uranium enrichment.
"Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities," the UN monitor said in a report to the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors and the UN Security Council.
Six world powers are to meet early next week in a bid to defuse the nuclear crisis with Iran, while the United States and its allies seek stiffer UN sanctions, US officials said Thursday.
AFP 23 0700 GMT 02 07
Copyright© 1999 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels