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

To: Big Dog who wrote (39056)	3/5/1999 4:57:00 PM
From: Platter	Respond to of 95453

Oil clings to higher ground on OPEC diplomacy (Updates with closing prices) LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) - Oil prices held firmly to recent gains on Friday following signals that producer club OPEC might consider fresh action to support glutted markets. Hopes that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries may solve a dispute blocking attempts to make further output cuts have pushed prices up 70 cents over this week. The international benchmark Brent crude in London ended two cents higher at $11.55 a barrel, some $2 above December's 12-year low. The possibility that OPEC might decide new production curbs at a meeting later this month lured buyers back into the market at the middle of the week as U.S. investment funds sought to cover positions. OPEC heavyweight Iran is embroiled in a dispute with other members of the cartel over the production baseline it was assigned last year when producers agreed a series of output cuts, arguing it is much too low. But a recent flurry of Iranian diplomacy has raised sellers' hopes that OPEC would go beyond the 2.6 million barrels per day in output reductions it agreed last June. Iranian diplomats say Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi will visit fellow OPEC member Venezuela on March 17 for two days to discuss the coming group meeting. Kharrazi has already visited OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Libya to discuss the March 23 gathering, and has called for more production cuts to lift prices from their current trough. But some remain sceptical that OPEC can do enough on its own to bring a rapid recovery in prices. "We have not seen any signs that further restraint can be organised for the late March meeting and we're not hearing anything from non-OPEC producers," said brokers GNI in a report. Bloated stockpiles remain a barrier to a robust price rebound from December's historic low of $9.55 for Brent. The market shrugged off news that northern Iraqi oil exports piped to Turkey's Mediterranean coast were running near full capacity on Friday. The pipeline was closed on Sunday after a U.S. military strike on a pipeline repeater station in Iraq's northern no-fly zone near Mosul. Prices in dollars per barrel: Mar 5 Mar 4 (close) (close) IPE April Brent $11.55 $11.53 NYMEX April light crude $13.30 $13.35