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

To: SargeK who wrote (39491)	3/10/1999 1:38:00 PM
From: Platter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

NY Crude Oil Rises on Expectations That OPEC Will Cut Output This Month Crude Oil Rises on Expectations for OPEC Output Cuts (Update2) (Adds details on possible OPEC cuts below first subheading.) New York, March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose as much as 3.5 percent to a four-month high in a day of roller-coaster trading after Saudi Arabia said OPEC would agree to more output reductions when it meets this month. An agreement on output reductions will be hammered out before the March 23 meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi said, according to Agence France-Presse. Non-OPEC producers will be part of the agreement, AFP said. Oil company shares followed crude higher. ''If they could pull off another million barrels (a day) in cuts, it would really do the trick,'' said Chester Irvin, a trader at ABN Amro Inc. in New York. ''If they had 100 percent compliance on the earlier cuts, we'd be headed a lot higher.'' April crude oil rose as much as 49 cents to $14.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest price since Nov. 3. Crude was recently 8 cents higher at $13.93 a barrel after falling as low as $13.68. Prices are up about 38 percent from a 12-year low of $10.35 reached Dec. 21 on the Nymex. Still, oil has fallen 27 percent since November 1997, when OPEC voted to raise its production ceiling in anticipation of higher demand. Chevron gained 3 3/16 to 83 1/8, contributing most to the Dow average's gain. Exxon rose 2 1/8 to 72 1/16. Texaco Inc. gained 2 7/8 to 52 1/2. In London, April Brent crude oil rose as much as 63 cents, or 5.4 percent, to $12.19 a barrel, on the International Petroleum Exchange. Brent was recently 38 cents higher at $11.94 a barrel after falling as low as $11.52. World oil producers last year pledged to cut production by about 4 percent. April gasoline was recently 0.2 cent higher at 43.10 cents a gallon on the Nymex while April heating oil was 0.29 cent higher at 36.30 cents a gallon. OPEC Cuts Naimi and oil ministers from Kuwait, Oman and Qatar released a statement after meeting today saying current oil prices were ''unacceptable'' and that they will take ''all important means'' to reduce production during the next few weeks. Kuwait's oil minister today told reporters in Kuwait City that there's an agreement on the problem Iran's output level following a telephone conversation on Sunday between Iran's president and the Saudi crown prince. OPEC failed to cut output at its last gathering in November after a squabble over who was responsible for breaking the last production cut agreement. Some obstacles remain before any new agreement. Venezuela, OPEC's third-largest producer, has ruled out new output cuts and some traders are skeptical that any new cuts would be made without Venezuela's participation. Some trader say that Venezuela's adherence to a previous pledge to cut 525,000 barrels a day may be considered enough, given that country's financial problems, to convince the rest of OPEC to cut further. ''Talk is cheap,'' Irvin said. ''There are still a lot of things out there, wrenches to throw into this. ''Two weeks ago, we were at $12 a barrel. Now we're at $14 and it's still pretty cheap. If they get greedy and start expanding production, this will backfire and we'll slam this market.'' Twice last year, OPEC agreed to cut supply, by a final total of 2.6 million barrels a day, though as of February the producers made less than 80 percent of the cuts they promised.