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

To: Francois H. Gaston who wrote (31160)	10/27/1998 7:49:00 AM
From: Gameboy	Respond to of 95453

FOCUS-Oil market firms ahead OPEC meet, eyes Mitch Monday October 26, 8:18 pm Eastern Time biz.yahoo.com By Duncan Shiels LONDON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Monday as traders took precautions ahead of an informal gathering of OPEC ministers and a menacing new hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. North Sea benchmark crude Brent blend ended 29 cents higher at $13.05 a barrel. December Brent crude was firm throughout the day on what traders described as a technical bounce after last week's falls, supported by news that Hurricane Mitch, the strongest storm of the season, was trekking across the western Caribbean on Monday with winds reaching 155 mph (250 kph). Meteorologists, who described the hurricane as potentially catastrophic, said they didn't yet know when or where the slow-moving hurricane would make landfall, but Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and Belize are bracing for a possible strike. Mitch has already lashed the Cayman Islands, eastern Honduras and Nicaragua with heavy rains. Dealers said earlier they were taking out insurance against the possibility of higher prices later in the week when OPEC ministers are expected to meet on the sidelines of an energy conference in Cape Town, South Africa. ''Chances are that nothing much will come of the meeting -- they may talk about more cuts but it seems very unlikely they'll reach any agreement,'' said a dealer in London. ''But a lot of people think the recent selloff was overdone so they're taking out some cover just in case.'' Other London traders expressed some scepticism as to how much would come out of such a gathering. ''They're going to have to do something (to boost crude prices) but whether the market takes any notice is another matter,'' said one broker. A source familiar with the policy of the world's biggest exporter Saudi Arabia said on Friday that the kingdom was keeping an open mind on possible further producer action to prop up ailing prices. But the source said that the priority for the world's largest oil exporter was to ensure fellow producers would fully comply with pledged output cuts. Saudi Arabia's Ali al-Naimi, Venezuela's Erwin Arrieta and Mexico's Luis Tellez, who have led two rounds of output cuts so far this year, are among the producing and consuming countries attending the Cape Town conference. Analysts say the best hope for oil prices in the short-term is better compliance with the three million barrels a day of pledged cuts and a cold winter. But Tellez said late on Monday he saw no new oil cuts resulting from the Cape Town gathering. ''There's nothing like that. The idea is to comply (with agreements already reached),'' Tellez told reporters, when asked whether more oil cut agreements could be expected.