- LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices
spiked on Wednesday after the U.S. government reported a big dip in national
winter heating fuel stocks as Washington presses its case for war against
Iraq.
-
- The Department of Energy said stocks of heating oil at
U.S. refineries in the week to February 21 fell 3.9 million barrels to
36.1 million, 33 percent lower than a year ago.
-
- U.S. light crude CLc1 set a new two-year high of $37.40
and by 1700 GMT was up $1.20 at $37.26 a barrel. London Brent crude LCOc1
gained 65 cents to $32.95 a barrel.
-
- "For short-term trading targets there's really not
much holding this market back from $40 a barrel," said Paul Horsnell,
oil analyst at JP Morgan.
-
- "These latest inventory figures are scary."
-
- The U.S. inventory slump has reinforced the impact on
oil prices of a bout of colder-than-normal winter weather in the world's
biggest energy consuming nation.
-
- U.S. importers are missing large volumes of refined products
from Venezuela where a strike has kept big refineries idled since early
December.
-
- Oil is already priced at a premium for fear a U.S. attack
on Iraq, the world's eighth largest oil exporter, could slash Baghdad's
shipments and possibly other supplies from the Middle East, source of 40
percent of global crude trade.
-
- BLIX
-
- The United States said on Wednesday it doubted either
Russia or China would veto a new U.N. Security Council resolution designed
to pave the way for war.
-
- The comments, made by a senior U.S. administration official
speaking on condition of anonymity, seemed to improve prospects for the
resolution, although questions remained over the nine council votes it
needs to pass and a possible French veto.
-
- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said that Iraq
had not yet made a "fundamental decision to disarm" and still
fell short of full cooperation with U.N. disarmament demands.
-
- Blix, who is readying another report to the Security
Council, told reporters he thought Iraq had stepped up its efforts to release
documents and other data as required by United Nations inspectors.
-
- But he added, in answers to reporters' questions: "Full
cooperation or a breakthrough, No? I don't think you can say that. We have
a very long list of disarmament issues and it will require a big effort
in order to clarify all of those."
-
- "I do not think I can say there is evidence of a
fundamental decision (to disarm) but there is some evidence of some increased
activity," he said.
-
- Wednesday's data on U.S. oil stockpiles countered comments
from Washington on Tuesday that it was ready to quickly release government
strategic reserves if it judges that a war in Iraq is causing a severe
supply disruption.
-
- Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said he would release
crude from the 600-million-barrel national reserve if supplies suffer a
heavy cut from war.
-
- But Washington has yet to make clear whether it thinks
a stoppage of Iraq's 1.7 million barrels a day of exports would be sufficient
to warrant a release.
-
- OPEC has said it has enough spare capacity to cover any
Iraqi outage.
|
