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Oil mixed; Brent crude breaches 77 dollars
AFP
NEW YORK
Petroleumworld.com 07 13 07Global oil prices were mixed Thursday, with Brent North Sea crude briefly topping 77 dollars per barrel, as tight US energy supplies and jitters over Nigeria fueled speculative buying, traders said.
New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, fell six cents to close at 72.50 dollars per barrel, after trading as high as 73.80 dollars, a peak last seen on August 15, 2006.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for August delivery rose 96 cents to settle at 76.40 dollars per barrel, after leaping over the 77-dollar-mark around 1415 GMT.
"With Brent challenging the prior all-time highs, speculators are now piling up futures contracts in anticipation of a new record high price," said Louis-Vincent Gave, head of GaveKal Research.
Prices also found strong support from fresh unrest in Nigeria, the eighth-biggest crude oil exporter in the world and the leading African producer.
Traders mulled a mixed stockpiles report released on Wednesday by the US Department of Energy.
Crude futures had fallen after the DoE said US gasoline reserves climbed by 1.2 million barrels to 205.6 million in the week ending July 6. That beat analysts' forecasts of a gain of 825,000 barrels.
But gasoline stocks were 3.8 percent lower than at the same stage last year.
US refineries meanwhile picked up steam, operating at 90.2 percent of capacity compared with 90.0 percent the prior week. Analysts had banked on a stronger performance of 90.4 percent.
Man Financial analyst John Kilduff said Thursday that news that a US refinery, which had been idled earlier in the week, was coming back online, helped exert downward pressure on prices.
"Crude's losses were limited, however, as inventories last week fell for the first time in six weeks due to a drop in imports and rising utilization rates," Kilduff said.
Traders were focusing on gasoline reserves during the peak demand of the US summer vacation driving season.
In Nigeria, kidnappers seized the two-year-old son of a local chief in the restive oil-producing southern region, five days after an abducted British toddler was freed, police and his father said Thursday.
Police spokeswoman Ireju Barasu said Samuel Amadi was snatched at gunpoint while being driven to school in Port Harcourt, the capital of southern Rivers state.
The snatching came exactly a week after three-year-old Margaret Hill was kidnapped in similar circumstances in Port Harcourt. She was freed on Sunday and her parents said no ransom was paid.
More than 200 foreigners -- mostly oil workers -- have been seized since the start of 2006 in the Niger Delta in unrest that has reduced the country's output by a quarter.
AFP 12 1959 GMT 07 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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