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To: Alex who wrote (30236)	3/17/1999 8:35:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116801

Commodities-Oil up on supply hopes, gold steadies 07:01 p.m Mar 17, 1999 Eastern NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - Oil prices closed above $15 a barrel for the first time in five months on Wednesday on growing confidence that production cutbacks may finally have a real effect on trimming the world oil supply glut. In other commodity markets, gold prices steadied amid jitters about possible gold sales by the International Monetary Fund. Grain and meat prices were buoyed by hopes for government food aid shipments. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for April delivery closed 59 cents higher at $15.05 a barrel, drawing support from news that Saudi Arabia's state oil firm had begun notifying customers of smaller shipments starting in April. Members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries led by Saudi Arabia pledged with non-OPEC producers last week to cut global oil production by more than 2 million barrels per day. Russia on Wednesday also pledged cuts. Saudi Arabia's 585,000 barrel per day output cut in the pact, the third within a year, represents 34 percent of OPEC's promised cut of 1.718 million barrels. Non-OPEC producers Mexico, Norway and Oman pledged an additional 286,000 barrels in cuts. OPEC is expected to ratify the cuts at a March 23 meeting in Vienna. A Saudi source said on Wednesday the state oil firm, Saudi Aramco, had begun notifying customers of planned cuts. ''There is no doubt in my mind the Saudis are determined to raise oil prices,'' said Robert Mabro of the Oxford Institute of Energy Economics. Crude prices also drew support from a strong rally in gasoline and heating oil after a weekly report from the American Petroleum Institute issued late Tuesday showed sharp drops in U.S. stockpiles of those products. The API said distillate stocks, which include heating oil, fell 4.5 million barrels in the week ended March 12, while U.S. gasoline inventories fell by 7.0 million barrels. As a result, April gasoline closed 2.53 cents a gallon higher at 47.20 cents and April heating oil 1.91 cents a gallon higher at 39.68 cents. Gold closed slightly higher as the market steadied after two days of sharp declines as talk of IMF gold sales sent prices reeling to six-month lows. At the COMEX, April gold closed 20 cents higher at $284.10 an ounce. U.S. President Bill Clinton on Tuesday advocated gold sales by the IMF to help fund debt relief for poorer countries. But on Wednesday analysts began to downplay the immediate effects. ''The threat of IMF sales was seized on in the market,'' said James Steel, an analyst with Refco Inc. ''Today, the market seemed to focus the steps that would need to take for those sales to take place. The idea is gaining credibility, but the timetable is in question.'' Grain and meat markets continued to draw support from hopes for food aid shipments and other government-funded steps to trim production and boost demand. Wheat for May delivery at the Chicago Board of Trade rose 1-1/4 cents a bushel to $2.77-3/4, and May corn closed 2 cents higher at $2.25-3/4. May soybeans, which shot up this week on talk that the government will add soybeans to food shipments, ended 1-1/2 cents lower at $4.81-1/4 on speculative profit-taking. Traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange said hog prices were supported by talk that the United States was finalising a deal to ship pork and other meats to Russia. June hog prices closed 0.500 cent a pound higher at 53.025 cents. ((Chicago commodities desk(312)408-8720, chicago.commods.newsroom+reuters.com)) Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.

To: Alex who wrote (30236)	3/17/1999 8:39:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116801

FOCUS - U.S. senators question White House policy on Iraq 07:00 p.m Mar 17, 1999 Eastern By Patrick Connole WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - U.S. senators sharply criticised Clinton administration policies on Wednesday that let Iraq sell oil while the United States bombs the country to contain its weapons capability. Senators from both parties, in a joint meeting of the Foreign Relations and Energy panels, questioned what they called a contradiction in U.S. policy: Bombing campaigns to force Baghdad to comply with arms inspections on one hand, and, on the other hand, U.S. support for raising the amounts of oil Iraq can export under the U.N. oil-for-food relief programme. ''The so-called 'oil-for-food' programme may have worthy humanitarian goals, but Saddam is using the increased oil capacity to smuggle oil products for hard cash,'' said Sen. Frank Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. ''They are either our enemy or not. Are we continuing to prop up the regime of a despot?...That clearly seems to be the case,'' Murkowski said. In defending administration policy, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering denied that U.S. support for lifting the amount of oil Iraq can pump under the U.N. oil programme hurts domestic producers, or helps Saddam Hussein. ''The U.S. has always said sanctions are aimed at the current Iraqi regime, not its people. The oil-for-food programme has been, and remains, evidence that we take Saddam's responsibility to feed his people seriously, even when he does not,'' Richardson said. Sen. Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican, said Iraq has re-emerged, under the U.N. programme, as a major player in oil markets, adding to a supply glut that has ''put 40,000 to 50,000 people out of work'' across U.S. ''oilpatch'' states. New Mexico Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman, while noting that the Clinton administration needed to better manage its Iraqi policies, said it was the Republican Bush administration which in 1991 first pushed through the U.N. Security Council an oil export relief plan for Iraq. ''Iraq rejected such U.N.-managed oil sales until 1996 when the misery of the Iraqi people became a major public relations problem,'' Bingaman said. Richardson called Iraq only a ''marginal'' player on the world oil stage, and refuted claims by U.S. oil industry officials that Saddam was a crucial ''swing'' oil producer. ''Saudi Arabia is the swing producer, not Iraq,'' Richardson said. He noted that while Iraq is currently producing 2.5 million barrels per day, it possessed no capacity to increase that level for at least the next year or two. Iraq is only able to generate around $3 billion every six months from its oil sales, well below the $5.26 billion ceiling set by the U.N. Security Council, Richardson said. ''The best way to help the domestic oil industry is to increase demand by helping to re-build the Asian economy and to lower production costs at home,'' Richardson said. He noted that Department of Energy studies showed the Asian economic weakness, combined with dramatically warmer winters, Iraqi production and increased output from other OPEC nations have all sent world oil prices tumbling to historic lows. ''Because these factors interact in the world oil market, it is difficult to state precisely how much of an impact each factor contributed,'' Richardson said. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.