|
Although title is about Iraq, focus of the article
is primarily on the affects of Hurrican Isidore on oil production in the Gulf of
Mexico. A number of the big companies are being affected, including
ExxonMobil and RD Shell.
Ronan
Oil on even keel, focus
remains on Iraq
SINGAPORE, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Oil prices were
steady on Thursday, with the focus still on Iraq war fears and a tropical storm
that forced refiners to shut operations in the U.S. Gulf
Coast.
U.S. benchmark crude oil futures last stood at $30.72 a barrel, up eight cents from Wednesday's New York close. The gains helped prices stay near their peak of $31.39 on Tuesday, the highest since February 2001. "Iraq remains the key to the market at the moment. There is still a couple of dollars risk under current prices and we may yet see another test of the up trend," said Simon Games-Thomas at NM Rothschild & Sons in Sydney." U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan tried to play down fears about a sharp spike in oil prices in the event of a U.S.-led war with Iraq, suggesting the rise in prices if an attack occurs was likely to be less than during the 1990-92 Gulf War. The comments were overshadowed by tropical storm Isidore, making its presence felt in the U.S. Gulf Coast a day after almost all Gulf of Mexico crude production was shut in. With the storm expected to land in Louisiana on Thursday, big refiners such as ExxonMobil Corp. , Royal Dutch/Shell and Valero Energy Corp. said on Wednesday they had slowed refinery output. In addition to oil refineries, some 2.3 million barrels of daily U.S. crude production and deliveries were shut down because of stormy weather earlier this week. This followed the roughly 1.42 million barrels per day of offshore Gulf of Mexico's 1.5 million bpd crude oil capacity that had been shut-in by Tuesday. A small slice of Gulf of Mexico crude and natural gas production, however, has since resumed with BP Plc returning workers to the western Gulf and expecting some natural gas production back on line by Wednesday evening. The disruptions came on the heels of news that U.S. crude supplies had shrunk. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday showed crude stocks fell to their lowest level since March 2001 in the week ended September 20. The EIA said stocks fell 2.6 million barrels to 285.2 million barrels, representing a cumulative drop in the past four weeks of 17.9 million barrels. The data confirmed earlier reports by the American Petroleum Institute of a 2.2 million barrel decline in U.S. crude inventories. Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service |