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SINGAPORE: World oil prices were trading below $100 in Asia on
Friday after a stronger-than-expected rise in US crude-oil reserves
calmed supply jitters, dealers said.
In afternoon trade, New York’s main contract,
light sweet crude for delivery in April, fell 16 cents to $98.07 a
barrel.
The contract closed $1.47 lower during floor
trading on Thursday at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The March contract had expired Wednesday at an
all-time closing high of $100.74 after scaling a peak of $101.32 a
barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for April delivery was up
one cent to $96.25 a barrel, after falling $2.18 dollars on
Thursday. The contract had struck a record summit of $99.22 on
Wednesday.
“Oil has decoupled from the larger economy in
the past week but the bigger picture is that fundamentals are still
strong and there is still not enough spare capacities,” said Tony
Nunan of Mitsubishi Corp.’s petroleum business in Tokyo.
“Prices in the short term will still go down
but will stay supported in the middle to long term.”
The US government’s weekly report on energy
stockpiles helped ease market worries about supply, heightened by
speculation that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) is planning to cut production.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) said crude-oil
stockpiles rose for the sixth consecutive week, by 4.2 million
barrels in the week ended February 15.
That soundly topped analysts’ consensus
forecasts of a 2.6-million-barrel increase.
Gasoline inventories grew by 1.1 million barrels
last week, the DOE said, outstripping market expectations of a gain
of 450,000 barrels.
Stockpiles will continue to increase unless
OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, decides
to cut production, said Nunan.
At an emergency meeting on February 1, OPEC
maintained its official daily output ceiling at 29.67 million
barrels of oil, despite pressure from President George W. Bush to
boost supplies to cool high prices that are slowing economic growth.
“There is a clear perception in the market
that OPEC would have moved to defend prices had they slipped much
below $85, implying that the downside might be fairly limited even
if the market had got through that wall of consumer buying,” said
Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.
Libya’s oil chief Shukri Ghanem said Wednesday
that OPEC will wait to see if prices hold around $100 a barrel
before making any decision on output levels.
-- AFP
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