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Politics : Bush Bust: Confidence craters 50 pts. in 12 months. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: username who wrote (4)	3/26/2003 3:50:55 AM
From: Baldur Fjvlnisson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23

Crude Oil Gains After Rumsfeld Says War in Iraq May Last Months By Sri Jegarajah Singapore, March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose as much as 4 percent in London after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Iraq war may last months, extending a disruption that reduced oil exports from the country by three quarters last week. Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing yesterday the U.S.-led war to depose Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is ``closer to the beginning than the end,'' and may last days, weeks or months. Allied forces moved within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of Baghdad as resistance in Basra and other cities in the south continues. ``Oil prices will continue to be very volatile,'' said Richard Barrett, president of oil futures trader Granite Capital Inc. in San Diego, California. ``I'd anticipate prices to go down when Baghdad falls.'' Brent crude oil for May settlement rose as much as 99 cents, or 4 percent, to $25.80 a barrel and traded at $25.42 in electronic trading on the International Petroleum Exchange in London, at 2:43 p.m. Singapore time. In New York, crude oil for May delivery rose as much as 69 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $28.66 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded at $28.60 a barrel at 2:31 p.m. Singapore time. Exports Oil exports from Iraq tumbled 76 percent last week as the war began against the country, the United Nations said. Exports from Iraq, which produces 3 percent of world supply and is the third- biggest producer in the Middle East, averaged 443,000 barrels a day, down from 1.8 million barrels in the final full week before the UN program to monitor shipments was suspended. Iraq is pumping oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, even as U.S.-led forces are trying to capture Iraqi oil fields, said Gulsum Korkmaz, a spokeswoman for the Turkish pipeline company Botas. She declined to specify how much oil was being pumped. Yesterday, crude oil fell 69 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $27.97 a barrel. $27.97 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have declined by 25 percent in the past two weeks on speculation that Iraqi exports will soon be restored. Any notion that the war would end in a week is ``just unrealistic,'' Rumsfeld said. ``We have said repeatedly we can't say how long it will last.'' He warned that more fighting lies ahead as the U.S. nears a face-off with Iraq's Republican Guard, Hussein's best-equipped troops. Oil Fields President George W. Bush asked Congress for $489.3 million for emergency fire fighting and oil infrastructure repairs in Iraq, according to an administration official. Iraqi troops may sabotage Kirkuk oil fields in the north, said Colonel Christopher Langton, a military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Retreating Iraqi armies have detonated oil well heads in the southern oil fields of Rumaila. The Allies ``found some of the southern oil fields mined and booby trapped in the same fashion that the Kuwait oil wells were during the last Gulf War,'' said Langton. ``Logic dictates that they would have done the same to the northern oil fields around Kirkuk.'' Nigeria Prices also rose as Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Europe's largest oil company, said a production shutdown in Nigeria entered its eighth day because of clashes between soldiers and ethnic Ijaw militants in the Niger River delta. ChevronTexaco Corp., the No. 2 U.S. oil company, and Total Fina Elf SA of France couldn't say when output might resume. The three companies have cut output by 817,500 barrels a day, or 37 percent of production last month in Nigeria, OPEC's No. 4 producer. ``That's bullish,'' said Granite Capital's Barrett, president. ``The figure could even be higher. It's bad news for U.S. refiners.'' Violence erupted on March 13 when Ijaw militants and soldiers clashed near the community of Okerenkoko. Ijaws want the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is seeking re- election on April 19, to re-draw electoral boundaries so they can control a local government council.