NEW YORK (AFP) - World oil prices rebounded more than a dollar owing to disruption to Iraqi exports and concern about possible fuel shortages, traders said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, jumped 1.40 dollars to 55.03 dollars a barrel by the close.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in July rose 1.68 dollars to 54.08 dollars per barrel.
The New York contract had slid 97 cents to close at 53.63 dollars per barrel Thursday after official data showing a jump in US crude stockpiles eased gasoline, or petrol, supply worries.
But prices regained their upward momentum owing to "a couple of unplanned maintenance issues for an ExxonMobil refinery in Texas and Hovensa in Saint Croix (in the Virgin Islands)", Refco analyst Marshall Steeves said.
Hovensa is a joint venture between US oil firm Hamerada-Hess and Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA.
"That brought in a lot of commercial buying in oil products. There is very high implied demand for distillates," Steeves said. Distillates include heating oil, diesel and jet fuel.
Bache Financial trader Tony Machacek said earlier that the market had ended the week in a "very erratic" mood.
"The only vaguely bullish development is that the northern Iraqi exports, which only just restarted yesterday (Thursday, after months of inactivity), have been closed again this morning," he said.
Iraqi oil exports to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan were interrupted on Friday as the result of an established shipping schedule and not because of sabotage, an official at the Northern Oil Company said later.
Machacek noted also that concerns about distillate inventories were providing support to prices.
"It still seems to be a distillate-product market which is the main support at the moment.
"It is very, very unusual. There is no weather factor and it is very early in the year to start worrying about distillate stocks coming into the winter season."
The US
Department of Energy said Thursday that distillates stockpiles rose 700,000 barrels to 106.4 million in the week ending May 27.
Crude oil inventories increased by 1.4 million barrels to 333.8 million and gasoline stockpiles rose 1.3 million barrels to 216.7 million.
"With total US distillate inventories still running at below-average levels and distillate demand growing very strongly indeed, this market looks set to remain tight for the foreseeable future," Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish said.
Gasoline supplies were being studied closely after the US summer vacation driving season began Monday.
In another development,
European Union energy officials said the 25-nation bloc would ask the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase output when the two sides meet for regular talks on June 9.
"The security of supply will be the main issue and the (European) commission will ask
OPEC as well to raise production," said a spokesman for EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs.
OPEC's president Sheikh Ahmed Fahd al-Sabah said on Wednesday that the cartel would most likely maintain current output levels when it meets in Vienna on June 15.
He also said it would not increase its official output quota to account for over-production.
The 11 OPEC members are producing in excess of 30 million barrels per day compared with an official fixed ceiling of 27.5 million bpd for the OPEC-10 (excluding
Iraq), agreed in March in the Iranian city of Isfahan. |
