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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BigBull who wrote (48138)	7/18/1999 7:40:00 AM
From: BigBull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Irna article on the POOS: thr 023 world-oil-prices oil market in past week vienna, july 16, irna -- prices of various crude oil continued its upward trend in international markets during the past week with the average crude prices reaching dlrs 19.02 per barrel in the week ending thursday july 15, 64 cents higher than what it was in the previous week. price of persian gulf's dubai crude increased by 64 cents and was traded at dlrs 17.78 per barrel, while the brent crude oil reached it highest level in two years on thursday and sold for dlrs 19,02 per barrel. experts believe the reason for the rise in crude oil prices is linked to the release of opec output figures for june which announced the level of commitment of opec members to the organization's production quota in march at between 97 to 98 percent. according to assessment by various sources, iraq, which is not among the countries which supports production cuts and despite the problems arising from unchecked production in the past months, managed to decrease its output by between 100,000 and 350,000 barrels per day during the last one month. therefore it became evident for all experts, including those who had doubts over opec's success on achieving production cuts of almost two million barrel per day, that the organization has almost totally succeeded in implementing its decision, at least for the time being. experts believe that on the other hand, the real effects of opec production cuts have been felt in the past few days because of the delay of almost two to three months between the time the crude is extracted and the time it reaches the destined markets. as expected, production figures show that the effects in the level of reserves held by oil consuming countries in the second quarter of the current year instead of increasing the usual 1.1 million barrels per day only went down to 300,000 barrels per day in reserves held by industrial countries. in the third quarter of the year, contrary to all expectations, the reserves will further dwindle and reach unprecedentedly low level during the cold season when the demand for fuel is at its all time high. the total reserves now stands at 180 million barrels which is the lowest compared to the previous year's figures. it is for this reason oil analysts believe that there is a possibility that opec drastically reduced the production because it might fetch still a higher price in the market at the end of the year. other oil analysts are of the opinion that there has been a miscalculation in tallying the amount of last year's oil reserves of 400 million barrels which has not been taken into consideration, that could lead to the drop of oil price. however, specialist predict that brent oil would further go up by dlrs 2 per barrel hitting a new record of dlrs 21 per barrel and that opec might try to take measures that brent oil does not go beyond dlrs 25 per barrel as was the case in 1996. ah/dh end :: ::irna 16/07/99 20:06