CRUDE OIL PRICING & RELATED / PART 3 - International In Scope
11/03 00:55 Asian oil demand bottomed, outlook poor
SINGAPORE, Nov 3 - Asian oil demand has bottomed out and will start to recover but the outlook for next year remains difficult, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Singapore Refining Co (SRC) said on Tuesday.
"My feeling is that the market's probably bottomed out now and will start to pick up, although we are anticipating next year will be a difficult year," SRC CEO Tony Anderson told Reuters.
"There are signs that things will start to pick up," he said.
Singapore refiners, Asia's swing suppliers with a total 1.3 million barrel-per-day capacity, saw their worst margins for the decade during end August when they dropped at one point to negative $2.00 per barrel.
SRC has dropped crude runs at its 285,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery by around 20-percent since August but has slowly hiked runs from October amid better margins.
Anderson declined to say when exactly SRC targets to raise runs to maximum again.
"If we see demand increase, we would most definitely respond to the market," Anderson said. "Our runs are to a large extend market driven."
"Margins are very volatile at the moment. We have to be far more responsive than we had been in the past," he said.
Singapore Petroleum Co <SPCS.SI> has a 40-percent stake in SRC, with British Petroleum <BP.L> and Caltex <CHV.N><TX.N> each holding 30-percent.
11/03 09:09 - World Oil wilts despite Iraq/U.N. flare-up
LONDON, Nov 3 - World oil prices fell further on Tuesday as traders shrugged off the latest crisis between key producer Iraq and the United Nations.
Benchmark Brent, on the ropes all year from a global supply glut, dipped back below the psychologically important $13 a barrel level to trade 12 cents lower at $12.94 by 1352 GMT.
The drop comes despite Iraq's latest vow to stick by its termination of all co-operation with U.N. weapons inspectors.
"We will not back down on the decision whatever sacrifices there might be," the official al-Iraq newspaper said.
U.N. Security Council members are on Tuesday deliberating on a resolution expected to condemn Iraq but not call for military action.
U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen sought to rally European and Gulf allies against Iraq, flying first to the UK and then to the Middle East.
Baghdad's decision to cease co-operation triggered brief oil price gains on Monday.
But the impact soon fizzled out as oil traders concluded that there was no immediate threat to Iraq's "oil-for-food" scheme supplying around 1.9 million barrels per day of exports.
Traders say the most likely impact of the worsening atmosphere is a delay to starting the new six-month humanitarian sales period, due on November 26.
Iraq may ask the United Nations to extend the current plan until it reaches its $5.25 billion target rather than re-negotiate the entire programme, diplomats said. Low oil prices and Iraq's crumbling oil industry equipment mean it is only expected to sell about $3 billion worth in the latest period.
Swelling Iraqi exports this year have contributed heavily to an oil supply surplus that has sliced the price of the commodity to their lowest level in real terms since the 1970s.
Traders will watch keenly for further reductions in swollen U.S. stock levels as key inventory figures are released late on Tuesday. While the stock overhang has eased slightly, levels remain well above last year.
Yet a recent gathering of OPEC ministers in South Africa chose to defer any decision on whether to extend or expand current output cuts until the group's formal ministerial conference in Austria, also on November 25.
While OPEC members Kuwait and Algeria called for further output cuts on top of 3.1 million bpd agreed so far this year, key producers Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and non-OPEC Mexico have made it clear they do not want to make more reductions.
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