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

To: pz who wrote (37663)	2/17/1999 5:29:00 PM
From: Platter	Respond to of 95453

NYMEX crude settles up despite API build forecast NEW YORK, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange ended with good gains Wednesday despite forecast of a build in U.S. crude stocks, traders said. While some traders said crude futures moved technically at some points in the session, others said crude was supported by news that the U.S. government planned to offer to store for oil companies up to 70 million barrels of crude oil in the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. They also said that the market reacted positively to news from Venezuela quoting the new Energy and Mines Minister, Ali Rodriguez, as saying that his country would complete by the end of this month the 525,000 barrels-per-day output cut it pledged to undertake last July. "The market was looking for positive news and it found it in these developments," said an ABN AMRO-Energex trader. Ahead of the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory data, NYMEX March crude settled at $11.53 a barrel, up 16 cents, after last trading at $11.50. Forward month contracts also posted modest gains. The contract traded as high as $11.65 in the early afternoon, fueled in part by typical shortcovering ahead of the API data. It then moved down to almost flat as some traders locked in profits. A combination of fresh buying and shortcovering pushed up the contract once again near the close. Traders and analysts responding to a Reuter poll had forecast a build of 3.9 million barrels in U.S. crude stocks for the week ending Feb. 12. The API's weekly report is due out early evening Wednesday. Front month heating oil also trimmed gains. The March contract settled at 29.84 cents a gallon, up 0.32 cent after last trading at 29.80 cents. Earlier, the contract retraced its record low of 29.20 cents set on Tuesday, but then bounced back, gliding along with crude. March gasoline ended at 33.07 cents a gallon, up 0.15 cent, after trading at 33.00 cents in the closing minute. It traded between 32.65/33.75 cents. In London, April Brent crude on the International Petroleum Exchange pared gains and last traded at $10.14 a barrel, up nine cents, helped by news on Washington's plan to beef up the U.S. petroleum reserve. Despite the day's gains, NYMEX traders said the market's fundamental weakness stemming from brimming supplies continue to bar any significant market recovery. For the week ending Feb. 12, traders and analysts said hey expected the weekly API data to "correct" from a large draw of 7.4 million barrels during the week of Feb. 5 as the data differed markedly from a DOE report for the same period showing a build of 600,000 barrels. The forecasters said they also expected a draw of 1.76 million barrels in distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel. They also predicted that gasoline stocks declined by 1.0 million barrels. The DOE plan to store more oil in the SPR is part of a relief package to help U.S. oil producers hard-hit by low prices and also to ensure the U.S. has an adequate emergency oil stockpile. Under the plan, oil companies will pay storage fees in the form of oil, which will be added to the SPR's current 561-million-barrel inventory, the DOE said. The plan comes in the wake of another DOE initiative announced last week calling for beefing up the SPR with 28 million barrels of oil by allowing oil companies to turn over a portion of the crude they produce in the central Gulf of Mexico, rather than make cash royalty payments.