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Pastimes : The Justa & Lars Honors Bob Brinker Investment Club -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Justa Werkenstiff who wrote (14712)	6/23/2000 4:17:00 PM
From: Justa Werkenstiff	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15132

NYMEX crude steadies above $32, shrugging off OPEC NEW YORK, June 23 (Reuters) - NYMEX crude oil futures steadied after a bout of selling near the close on Friday, staying strong as OPEC's move to increase output modestly hardly gave the market pause from its extended rally. As the week ended, there is little sign that the market's strength will ebb despite OPEC's decision midweek to increase oil flow to placate the U.S., where high gasoline prices have become a political issue. Volatile trade pushed August crude to a new contract high of $32.70, up 51 cents on the day. It lost steam near the close and settled at $32.25, up six cents. The contract traded as low as $31.90. July gasoline ended at $1.0810 cents a gallon, steadying with a loss of just 0.03 cent, after moving down as much as 3.03 cents to $1.0510 earlier. The contract peaked at an intraday high of $1.0870. News of a continued outage at a Sunoco (NYSE:SUN - news) gasoline making unit at its Point Breeze, Pa., refinery, as well as talk of another delay in Orion Refining's launch of a new catcracker at its Norco, La., refinery had little impact on gasoline. July heating oil slipped, settling 0.79 cent lower at 80.64 cents a gallon on late selling after moving up with crude and setting another fresh contract high of 82.40 cents. It dipped as low as 80.20 cents. In London, August Brent crude reasserted its strength and ended 27 cents higher at $30.42. In New York, traders said the market appears to be on a holding pattern, waiting for fresh fundamental news to guide it, after rallying about $1.50 since midweek. On Wednesday, 10 OPEC members agreed to raise output collectively by 708,000 barrels per day (bpd) beginning July 1 in a move to cool off the market's extended rally. Iraq is not included in the deal, as it exports oil under the U.N.-supervised oil-for-food programme. Traders and analysts say that an increase of about 1.0 million bpd would have been more realistic in bringing down prices because OPEC currently produces 500,000 bpd above its March output quotas. On Friday, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said he felt that oil prices were too high despite an easing of OPEC production curbs. Naimi told a news conference in Oslo after talks with the Norwegian oil minister that he felt that OPEC producers had done their part to ease high prices with an agreement to increase output. He said that consuming countries also had to help and said that producers should be ``extremely careful'' about raising output again. Naimi and OPEC ministers have blamed what they called speculation and U.S. regulations mandating cleaner-burning gasoline for much of the recent spike in oil prices. In the U.S., steep gasoline prices provoked by still-unexplained high prices in the Midwest are under federal investigation. But wholesale prices have started climbing down since Monday by around 40 cents and have steadied by Friday.