Crude prices higher as OPEC seen maintaining quota
Friday, 7 September 2007
SINGAPORE, Sept 6 (AFP): Crude oil prices were higher in Asian trade today on expectations that OPEC will maintain its existing production quota at a meeting next week, dealers said.
Prices were also kept firmer by the ongoing Atlantic hurricane season which has entered into its peak month of September, they said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, gained 29 cents to 76.02 US dollars per barrel from 75.73 dollars in late US trades Wednesday.
Brent North Sea crude for October delivery was 21 cents up at 74.55 dollars.
"OPEC doesn't seem to want to increase output and the market has gravitated higher," said Tobin Gorey, a commodities strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.
"There is a risk that demand may be higher in the fourth quarter," he said, referring to the northern hemishere winter period, when heating oil demand typically rises.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are meeting in Vienna next week, and member Iran said it was opposed to any increase in the cartel's production quota.
"Currently there is sufficient oil on the market," Iran's caretaker Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters Wednesday ahead of the OPEC meeting on September 11.
"There have been forecasts of one or two hurricanes and this has caused prices to rise. But our position is clear-there is a sufficient supply of oil on the market," he said.
At its last regular meeting in March, OPEC decided to keep its official production quota at 25.8 million barrels of oil per day.
World oil prices had shot up Tuesday after Qatar's energy minister said OPEC would not move next week to increase the cartel's oil output, despite calls for the organisation to respond to tight global supplies and strong energy demand.
The US Energy Department will release its weekly inventory snapshot Thursday, a day later than usual because Monday was a public holiday in the United States.
Analysts are predicting that US crude stocks fell again last week.
Prices were also kept firmer by the ongoing Atlantic hurricane season which has entered into its peak month of September, they said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, gained 29 cents to 76.02 US dollars per barrel from 75.73 dollars in late US trades Wednesday.
Brent North Sea crude for October delivery was 21 cents up at 74.55 dollars.
"OPEC doesn't seem to want to increase output and the market has gravitated higher," said Tobin Gorey, a commodities strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.
"There is a risk that demand may be higher in the fourth quarter," he said, referring to the northern hemishere winter period, when heating oil demand typically rises.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are meeting in Vienna next week, and member Iran said it was opposed to any increase in the cartel's production quota.
"Currently there is sufficient oil on the market," Iran's caretaker Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters Wednesday ahead of the OPEC meeting on September 11.
"There have been forecasts of one or two hurricanes and this has caused prices to rise. But our position is clear-there is a sufficient supply of oil on the market," he said.
At its last regular meeting in March, OPEC decided to keep its official production quota at 25.8 million barrels of oil per day.
World oil prices had shot up Tuesday after Qatar's energy minister said OPEC would not move next week to increase the cartel's oil output, despite calls for the organisation to respond to tight global supplies and strong energy demand.
The US Energy Department will release its weekly inventory snapshot Thursday, a day later than usual because Monday was a public holiday in the United States.
Analysts are predicting that US crude stocks fell again last week.