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

To: Roebear who wrote (61388)	3/3/2000 12:55:00 PM
From: The Ox	Respond to of 95453

NYMEX Oil: Down on profit taking, Hovensa catcracker return By Robert Gibbons, Bridge News New York--Mar 3--NYMEX Apr crude, gasoline and heating oil futures were all down sharply Friday, with brokers looking at profit taking on recent crude oil and gasoline gains causing the downturn, rather than any OPEC news. Expectation that the Hovensa St. Croix 145,000-barrels-per-day catcracker return was seen pressuring the gasoline market. * * * At 1055 ET, Apr crude was down 57c at $31.12 Apr gasoline was down 80 points to $98.00 cents per gallon. Apr heating oil was down 126 points at 78.20 cents per gallon. "You're seeing some profit taking after being so strong all week," said a broker. "Markets can't go in one direction. It's got to let some air out." "(The Hovensa news) is helping send gasoline down," said a broker. A broker said there has been some fund selling in crude. Crude has made two dips below the $31 "psychological barrier," as one broker put it, but rebounded from $30.96. The $30.83 Feb 25 high was seen as the next support level below $31, according to a broker. Earlier Friday, Venezuelan Energy and Mines Minister Ali Rodriguez said he expected OPEC members to reach an agreement before the full OPEC conference Mar 27 to increase crude oil output at some time in 2000. Rodriguez said he would visit Iran, and possibly other OPEC member-countries, prior to the meeting. While brokers were viewing all of the recent comments from OPEC and oil producing countries as inconclusive, Rodriguez' signal of a pre-Mar 27 journey to Iran and, possibly, other OPEC countries was seen as a probable mission to bring Iran and more price-hawkish OPEC members on board for a production increase in April. A Monday return of the 145,000-bpd Hovensa catcracker would be seen as an offset to the Tuesday loss of a 90,000-bpd ExxonMobil catcracker at its Baytown, Texas refinery. But profit-taking after a week where the near-month crude contract reached $32.15 per barrel and the gasoline contract surpassed $1 per gallon was a not unexpected turn by the market, brokers said.