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

To: Thean who wrote (20551)	4/27/1998 3:34:00 PM
From: pz	Respond to of 95453

NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - NYMEX crude extended gains in the afternoon, but skepticism on the possibility of another production cut by producers before the OPEC's semi-annual meeting in June kept oil futures prices from rising further, traders said. At 1325 EDT/1725 GMT, June crude traded at $15.35 a barrel, up 26 cents. The front-month contract had traded as high as $15.45 earlier, up 0.36, on a combination of news from OPEC and continuing concerns over U.S. refinery problems. It dropped to $14.95 before attracting buying, breaking last week's low of $15.02. May gasoline rose 0.75 at 50.85 cents a gallon while front-month heating oil gained 0.20 at 43.10 cents a gallon. Gasoline has been rising on reports of a record demand in the coming driving season that came as glitches in a number of U.S. refineries developed in the past two weeks. Earlier reports of Venezuela's Energy and Mines Minister Irwin Arrieta call for a further cut of 500,000 barrels per day in crude output aided the market's rise. Last month, OPEC members and some non-OPEC producers agreed to cut output by about 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) effective April 1. "There were paper and fund buying on the latest news from Venezuela," said a NYMEX trader, who added that doubts about the possibility of new reductions so soon failed to create a bigger impact on crude prices. Arrieta said in a television interview in Caracas that he had been in touch with his counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Mexico and that any further cuts could come before OPEC's mid-year meeting in Vienna. Arrieta's comments follow statements over the weekend by Gulf OPEC producers United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, which said they would support further output cuts if prices failed to recover by June. "Arrieta's statement is surprising," said the trader, noting that the initial data on whether OPEC and non-OPEC producers stuck to their pledge in March to cut output by about 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) would become available only in early May. As this developed, Luis Giusti, president of Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, told Reuters in New York that further oil output cuts by major producers was not yet needed. Asked about plans by Venezuela for further production cuts, Guisti said, "We are not planning any." Giusti, who is in New York for presentations to investors about an upcoming bond issue, said he hadn't heard about Arrieta's specific comments. The market is also watching for developments on the U.N. Security Council's review of sanctions against Iraq. The council, which was meeting Monday, was to hear a report from U.N. arms inspectors that they had hardly made any progress in the past six months in checking Iraq's claims that it had destroyed weapons of mass destruction. Certification by U.N. arms inspectors that Iraq had indeed rid itself of those weapons is required before the U.N. lifts sanctions against the country. The sanctions were imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.