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SINGAPORE: World oil prices rose to near $100 per
barrel in Asian trade on Monday, as Turkey’s offensive in northern
Iraq and reports Iran would back an OPEC output cut sparked fresh
worries, dealers said.
In afternoon trade, New York’s
main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, was up 75
cents to $99.56.
The contract closed 58 cents
higher at $98.81 during floor trading on Friday at the New York
Mercantile Exchange. It hit an all-time high of $101.32 last week.
Brent North Sea crude for April
delivery gained 78 cents to $97.79 per barrel, after settling 77
cents higher at $97.01 on Friday.
“Fresh geopolitical tensions in
Turkey, Iraq and Iran have been driving prices up since Friday,”
said Victor Shum, senior principal at Purvin and Gertz energy
consultancy in Singapore.
Turkey confirmed Thursday that it
had sent troops into northern Iraq to hunt down militants from the
Kurdish Workers’ Party after Turkish fighter jets struck at their
bases.
But Iraqi exports of 300,000
barrels of oil per day through Turkey have not been affected, the
Iraqi oil ministry said Saturday.
Iraq’s northern oil fields are
connected to the Turkish port of Ceyhan by a pipeline that crosses
the two countries’ border in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish
region, where Turkish troops are fighting separatist rebels.
Most of Iraq’s oil, a further
1.6 million barrels per day, is exported through the southern port
of Basra.
Iran’s Oil Minister Gholam
Hossein Nozari meanwhile said on Saturday that Tehran would back a
plan to cut oil production at next month’s OPEC meeting, the oil
ministry news agency Shana said.
Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) energy ministers meet in Vienna on March
5.
“In reality, it is going to be
difficult for OPEC to really cut production levels if prices stay
between the 90-100 dollar range,” said Shum.
OPEC earlier this month left its
official daily output ceiling at 29.67 million barrels.
That was despite US calls for an
output increase to reduce high oil prices. Western countries fear
pricey black gold will stunt economic growth, which is already
faltering in the US, and further fuel inflation.
--AFP
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