quelle: finance.yahoo.com
Tuesday May 14, 1:49 am Eastern Time
Reuters Business Report
Oil at 8-Month Highs, Awaits U.S. Stocks
By Cameron Dueck
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. oil prices hovered near eight-month highs just below $29 on Tuesday as the market predicted further shrinkage of the U.S. crude supply cushion and pondered a possible supply crunch at the end of the year.
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U.S. light crude rose 28 cents in Asia to $28.66 a barrel, extending Monday's 39-cent rise in New York. Prices are at the highest level since mid-September, having gained more than $2.20 in the past five trading days.
Weekly U.S. fuel stocks figures due to be released later on Tuesday are expected to show a drop in national crude inventories of about 2.5 million barrels, taking levels into a year-on-year deficit for the first time in 2002.
The American Petroleum Institute report comes a day after the West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency (IEA), predicted that oil supplies could tighten significantly in the next six months and inventories could plunge dangerously low if the OPEC cartel maintained its supply curbs.
"We're facing a situation in the latter part of the 2002 not unlike year 2000, when OPEC was in a position of having to unwind quotas to prevent too tight an oil balance," said Michael Rothman, senior energy specialist at Merrill Lynch, in a daily market comment.
The IEA warned that current production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries could cause stocks to fall dangerously low by September if supply curbs by the cartel coincided with a strong upswing in demand, as in 1999 after the Asian economic crisis.
"If producers keep output flat, the consequence is a significant stock drop and we have seen this happen before," said Klaus Rehaag, editor of the report, recalling 1999 when shrinking stocks led oil prices spiking above $35, the highest in a decade.
OPEC KEEPS TIGHT GRIP ON SUPPLIES
The IEA said OPEC production fell to its lowest level since June 1993 in April because Iraq suspended exports for a month in protest of Israel's military incursions into Palestinian areas.
Having slashed output by almost 20 percent since the start of 2001, some OPEC ministers have signaled that there is unlikely to be any rise in group output at a meeting set for June.
OPEC reduced output limits to 21.7 million bpd in January -- the lowest in a decade and five million bpd below levels at the start of 2001 to counter a downturn in demand as the global economy crumbled.
Crude stocks in the United States, the world's biggest consumer, fell 4.5 million barrels in the API's previous report to just over 321 million barrels, leaving a year-on-year surplus at less than one million barrels.
Slower imports, which some analysts attributed to the effects of a self-imposed 30-day oil exports embargo by Iraq, and an increase in gasoline production ahead of the peak demand summer driving season were expected to erode stocks.
Analysts polled by Reuters forecast this week's API report to show gasoline stocks rising in the week to May 10 by 1.7 million barrels and distillate stocks up by one million barrels.
MIDEAST OFFERS SUPPORT
While Israeli restraint over the weekend prompted some covering of long positions on Monday, brokers said Middle East tensions would continue to offer support to oil prices.
Oil markets fear that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may spread unrest in the Middle East, which sits on the majority of the world's petroleum reserves and currently pumps one-third of the global 76 million bpd market.
Israel's ruling Likud party over the weekend voted against any future establishment of a Palestinian state, while Palestinian President Yasser Arafat vowed on Monday to press ahead toward an independent state.
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