Crude Oil Rises as Production Increases May Come Too Late!

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Bloomberg Energy
Thu, 24 Feb 2000, 3:27pm EST


2/24 13:45 Crude Oil Rises Amid Speculation OPEC Acted Too Late to Prevent Shortages
By Stephen Voss

Crude Oil Rises as Production Increases May Come Too Late

New York, Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil prices rose more
than 2 percent on speculation that any production increases
approved by OPEC would come too late to avoid shortages.

Arab oil ministers meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this week
failed to give a clear sign of whether the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries would boost production. With U.S.
gasoline inventories 14 percent lower than a year ago, increased
output is needed to avoid shortages of motor fuel this summer.
``Even if OPEC increases output April 1, it will take a month
for that oil to reach us,'' said Victor Yu, an analyst at Refco
Inc. in New York.

Crude oil for April delivery rose as much as 76 cents, or 2.6
percent, to $30.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract recently was up 47 cents. Crude oil futures, which
are more than double what they were a year ago, reached a nine-
year high of $30.45 last week.

Prices retreated from the day's high after a top Venezuelan
oil official said the country will seek to boost oil production by
at least 125,000 barrels a day in April to help repair damage from
December's devastating floods. The increase would depend upon
approval from OPEC, he said.

In London, Brent crude oil for April settlement rose as much
as 43 cents to $27.49 a barrel on the International Petroleum
Exchange.

Crude oil futures were boosted earlier in the day by a
government report that showed a larger-than-expected drop in U.S.
inventories of the motor fuel.

U.S. gasoline supplies fell 2.9 million barrels, or 1.5
percent, last week to 285.5 million barrels, the Department of
Energy said. That was larger than the 432,000-barrel decline
reported yesterday by the American Petroleum Institute.

Gasoline for March delivery recently was little changed at
84.70 cents a gallon, up 0.08 cent, on the Nymex after rising as
much as 1.28 cents to a nine-year high of 85.90 cents on the DOE
report.

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-- Egalitarian (egalitarian@mail.com), February 24, 2000

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