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Gold/Mining/Energy : Harken Energy Corporation (HEC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: art slott who wrote (3898)	12/21/1998 2:38:00 PM
From: SteveR	Respond to of 5504

From cnn.com: Iraqi exports continue unabated as does OPEC glut, sending Brent to new low December 21, 1998: 11:51 a.m. ET LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices slumped to fresh lows Monday after Iraq's exports survived a four-day military onslaught against Baghdad without disruption. Benchmark North Sea Brent fell 35 cents to $9.63 a barrel after hitting a new 12-year low of $9.55. Prices haven't been lower since they slumped below $9 in the summer of 1986. Average prices for oil in Europe this year already are the lowest since 1976. Crude oil for January delivery fell 43 cents to $10.52 a barrel in New York. With hostilities against Iraq apparently over, big inventories of oil and sluggish demand were foremost on traders' minds, analysts said. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would have to cut output further to have any chance of a price rise in 1999, the Center for Global Energy Studies said. "The market helps those who help themselves," it said in a monthly report. "If OPEC wants higher oil prices, it must cut production to achieve them. Protracted delays as we saw in 1998 will only make the situation worse." Western industry officials said four days of air strikes aimed mainly at Iraqi military targets seemed to have had little direct impact on the country's export facilities. Iraqi exports were running normally Monday, said one industry official familiar with monitoring under a U.N. oil-for-food sales program. More meetings with key producers Meanwhile, Venezuelan President-elect Hugo Chavez plans to meet Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo in Mexico in the next few days for what he described as urgent talks between the two key oil producers. Chavez said one of the main topics of discussions will be oil, following a meeting in Madrid last week by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico, the architects of two rounds of oil production cuts this year meant to shore up prices. Prices slumped after the meeting ended without commitments for additional production cuts. "The truth is that the stock overhang is of such gigantic proportions that it will take a lot more than the possible loss of a few million Iraqi barrels and a few words from Madrid to revive prices," the Center for Global Energy Studies said.