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

To: Fitz who wrote (38840)	3/3/1999 5:18:00 PM
From: Platter	Respond to of 95453

NEW YORK, March 3 (Reuters) - Front-month crude oil futures eased a bit while refined products held on to big gains near the close Wednesday, driven higher by bullish U.S. weekly inventory data, traders said. At 1502 EST/1802 GMT, NYMEX April crude traded up 39 cents at $12.90 a barrel. The contract raced to an intraday high of $12.99 midday, but failed to break through the $13 barrier. In early trade, it fell to a session low of $12.64. There was a slight easing midday after news that a disabled Iraqi pipeline was set to resume operations late Wednesday. But the market resumed its upswing shortly after as traders noted that the overriding factor in the day's bullish session was the large draw in U.S. crude stocks last week. "We are watching the situation in Iraq, but if Iraq resumes pumping, that means we go back to the high-supply level...the thing to watch is how much Iraq will add to supplies in the near future," said a NYMEX trader. The bulls kept pushing up heating oil and gasoline futures, encouraged by stockdraws in the weekly status reports, traders said. Front-month heating oil was up 0.92 cent at 33.40 cents a gallon as it stayed within its 32.75/33.80-cent range. NYMEX April gasoline traded up 1.31 cents at 39.75 cents a gallon, below its intraday high of 40.10 cents. The contract posted a session low of 39.00 at the opening. At 1504 EST/2004 GMT, April Brent crude on the Internatioal Petroleum Exchange in London traded at $11.28 a barrel, up 28 cents, easing from the day's high of $11.38. The American Petroleum Institute, in its closely watched weekly data, said U.S. crude stocks fell almost six million barrels last week. The U.S. Department of Energy "confirmed" the data in its own weekly report, which showed U.S. crude stocks fell 3.2 million barrels last week. On products, traders said they were leaning on DOE data, which showed draws of 1.9 million barrels in distillates, which include heating oil, and 1.2 million barels in gasoline. The API data showed an unexpected increase of 347,000 barrels in distillates and a draw of 745,000 barrels in gasoline. Forecasts calling for cooler temperatures in the next six to 10 days, after the mercury climbs to near normal by this weekend, was also supportive of heating oil futures, traders said. "Refinery runs remain a riddle," said a NYMEX trader, noting that recent cutbacks and involuntary shutdowns have not shown up in the latest API report. API said crude oil runs were up at 14.5 million barrels per day (bpd) last week, up slightly from the 14.3 million barrels in the previous week. OPEC ministers are set to meet March 23 in Vienna to take up the current oil market situation and news that Iran and Saudi Arabia had stressed the need for further oil production cuts "is positive," the trader said.