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Gold/Mining/Energy : Anyone following UTI Energy Corp.? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Harold S. who wrote (785)	6/8/1998 5:03:00 PM
From: Captain James T. Kirk	Respond to of 1305

OPEC output rises in May to 28.37 mpbd - Rtr survey By Richard Mably LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - OPEC producers' efforts to restore the value of their oil exports were foiled again in May by rising Iraqi sales and high stocks, a Reuters survey found. May wellhead output from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries rose marginally to 28.37 million barrels a day (bpd) from a revised 28.29 million in April, the survey of OPEC, company officials and industry monitors found. Supplies from the 10 OPEC members that signed up for reductions at an end-March emergency meeting were down about 900,000 bpd from February's benchmark for the cuts, about 75 percent compliance. That's an improvement on the 745,000 bpd cut in April which left OPEC still 500,000 bpd, or 40 percent, short of its target. OPEC, excluding Iraq, had agreed to slice output by 1.245 million bpd starting in April for the rest of the year following the Riyadh pact of March 22 which also found support from non-OPEC states. After an initial surge, sceptical oil markets have failed to respond to cuts as producers had hoped, leaving $14.30 Brent blend on Monday still languishing $5 short of last year's prices. OPEC's two biggest producers Saudi Arabia and Venezuela responded last week by announcing a combined additional cut of 350,000 bpd effective from July 1 with non-OPEC Mexico throwing in another 100,000 bpd. OPEC's efforts have been stymied by steadily rising Iraqi sales over the past three months to 2.29 million in May. Iraq averaged 1.64 million bpd of sales in May in a month when exports on a weekly basis varied between 1.2 and 1.9 million, U.N. sources said. Iraqi exports have risen from 1.1 million in February to 1.27 million in March and 1.40 in April on top of a steady 650,000 bpd in domestic consumption and road sales to Jordan. June Iraqi sales will be lower because of a short disruption between the third and fourth rounds of the U.N.'s oil-for-food exchange. Monitors said Iran, which had increased its output in April, appeared in May to have restricted exports, rcducing supplies by about 170,000 bpd to 3.55 million. Iran has launched a campaign to convince sceptics that previously had underestimated its own domestic consumption but sceptics say Tehran is reporting higher oil use as a tool to minimise its own contribution to output cuts. There were still question marks against the performance of Qatar and Indonesia, neither of which had any marked change in supply. OPEC's biggest producers Saudi Arabia appeared in May to flush out some of the supplies built up in storage to run over its temporary allocation, monitors said. Venezuela kept to its word maintaining lower flows at 3.20 million. The Reuters survey seeks a best estimate of wellhead flows in OPEC countries based on the views of officials, industry monitors and analysts inside and outside member countries. OPEC quotas are based on supply to market, defined to exclude movements to, but not sales from storage. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Harold S. who wrote (785)	6/8/1998 5:05:00 PM
From: Captain James T. Kirk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1305

FOCUS-Oil sinks as traders wary on more output cuts LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - Oil prices slunk lower on Monday despite keen Saudi Arabian efforts to lean on fellow producers for further output cuts. Benchmark Brent crude futures at 1000 GMT were trading at $14.47 a barrel, 13 cents down on the day and still nearly $5 a barrel below last year's average. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi will continue his tour of key Middle East producers with visits to Kuwait and Iran this week. Naimi intends to gather support for wider output cuts on top of last week's Amsterdam pact between Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico which pledged to cut 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) from saturated oil markets. Naimi stopped off on Sunday in Qatar, where he secured a 20,000 bpd output cut, the United Arab Emirates and non-OPEC producer Oman. ''You will see announcements of production cuts in coming days...from Gulf states and those outside the region,'' a well-placed source told Reuters. But traders remained wary. ''I am a bit cynical about the oil cuts,'' said one crude oil broker in London. "The market's been a bit disappointed so far," said another. ''If he (Naimi) can get pledges from everyone else than it would be supportive, but they might have been better off keeping quiet until they got the whole package together.'' Iran has welcomed the Amsterdam pact but has not committed itself to further production cuts before the full OPEC meeting on June 24. Kuwait has said it might consider reducing output after a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Riyadh on June 16. The GCC groups together OPEC members Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and non-OPEC Bahrain and Oman. Oman's oil minister Mohammad bin Hamad bin Seif al-Ramhi said only that ''we support the initiative of the three countries in Amsterdam...we are seriously reviewing the whole issue.'' Oman was one of non-OPEC producers that joined in the March Riyadh pact to slice some 1.5 million bpd from world supplies. That briefly pushed Brent above $15 last month. But prices have since been dragged down by the global stock glut and producers' failure to fulfill pledged production cuts. Analysts say that producers have only taken 850,000 bpd of oil off the market, little over half the cuts committed. And they are calling for the current round of cutbacks of to remove one million bpd if prices are to enter producer $16-18 a barrel comfort zone.