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

To: Tulvio Durand who wrote (25628)	7/13/1998 9:31:00 PM
From: P.Prazeres	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

This next story will send a chill down the spine of all on this thread. New York, July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil was little changed as traders awaited signs of whether output cuts from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers are eating into a global surplus. Kuwait's oil minister, Sheikh Saud Nasser Al-Sabah, said he doesn't expect oil prices to recover for at least six months because of excess supplies, the official Kuwait news agency reported yesterday. He said that OPEC's November decision to boost output quotas 10 percent ''had led to the market glut.'' Selling when the market opened drove prices lower ''and once that dried up the market turned around and bought it back up to little changed,'' said Jerry Samuels, managing director of Arb Oil Inc., the largest independent brokerage on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude for August delivery rose 4 cents to $13.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after falling 32 cents, or 2.3 percent earlier. In London, August Brent crude fell 15 cents to $12.71 on the International Petroleum Exchange. ''Later rather than sooner is the more likely recovery time for this market,'' said Rich Redash, an energy futures analyst at Prudential Securities in New York. Kuwait's oil minister ''suggested low prices are in store for another six months,'' so ''the path of least resistance is still lower.'' Seventeen oil producers promised output cuts beginning in April, some of which were expanded at the beginning of July since the original cuts didn't stop Nymex oil prices from sinking to a 12-year low of $11.42 last month. The new cuts effectively reverse OPEC's November decision to boost production and reduce supply to match lower-than-expected demand in Asia. OPEC's eleven members produced 28.257 million barrels a day last month, 37,000 barrels a day more than in May, according to the Middle East Economic Survey, which said the relatively small increase ''hides a substantial (237,000 barrel-a-day) increase in Iranian production.'' ''The market is still very skeptical about the agreement'' to reduce output, said Philip Oxley, a broker with Credit Lyonnais Rouse Ltd. in London. Crude oil stockpiles in the U.S., the world's largest consumer, are 5.7 percent higher than a year ago, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Imports of crude reached a record 10.2 million barrels a day, two weeks ago, API figures show. Refined products also were little changed. August gasoline fell 0.09 cent to 46.72 cents a gallon on the Nymex, while August heating oil rose 0.14 cent to 37.66 cents a gallon. Coastal Corp. idled a 29,000 barrel-a-day reformer unit, which creates blending components for gasoline, at its Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery late last week, traders said. The company had no comment and traders didn't know how long the unit will stay idle. Concern that there could be political and social upheaval in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, is fading, Redash said, especially as oil fields are far from sporadic riots that followed last week's death of jailed opposition leader Moshood Abiola. Preliminary results from a weekend autopsy by an independent Canadian coroner showed that Abiola died of a heart attack, as the military government had claimed. ''As the riot smoke lifts, it's more bearish'' for the oil market, Redash said.