World oil prices rose above $61 per barrel on Friday, gaining from news of a slide to stocks of United States gasoline and amid tensions in crude producers Iran and Nigeria that may further affect supplies.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for April delivery climbed 67 cents to $61,29 per barrel in electronic trading.
New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, advanced 45 cents to $61,40 per barrel in electronic deals before the official opening of the US market.
As the market approaches the second quarter, where demand for heating oil is traditionally lower, focus has switched towards gasoline, or petrol, with the US driving season beginning in May that sees Americans take to their cars on holiday.
”Distillates are less important now; it’s [the drop in] gasoline [stocks] that took the market’s notice,” Global Insight analyst Simon Wardell said in London on Friday.
Thursday’s weekly inventory report from the US Department of Energy showed that gasoline inventories fell by 3,1-million barrels last week to 222,1-million in the week ending February 16.
According to the government they remain well above the seasonal average, but Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures, pointed to rising demand for gasoline.
”The demand level for gasoline is higher than last year. It’s quite an important factor supporting the [price] gains,” Tokyo-based Emori said Friday.
The Department of Energy, meanwhile, said on Thursday that US crude oil reserves had surged by 3,7-million barrels to 327,6-million barrels last week. Analysts had predicted a gain in crude of just 1,3-million barrels.
The report showed also that distillates, which include heating oil, fell by five million barrels to 128,3-million as a cold spell gripped the US.
Market watchers expected a smaller distillates drop of 2,88-million barrels, but the department noted that their levels ”are at the upper end of the average range for this time of year”.
Another boost to prices came from a Thursday report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that declared that Iran, one of the world’s biggest producers of crude, had failed to suspend uranium enrichment.
Should the international community respond by punishing Iran with economic sanctions, the Islamic nation may decide to disrupt its oil exports, according to some experts.
”Iran is the wild card and sanctions seem likely,” said Wardell, of Global Insight. ”The risk [for prices to spike] is there — it’s not immediate, but possible in the future.”
Oil traders were tracking also fresh unrest in Nigeria, which is Africa’s biggest producer of crude. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Friday on two Lebanese workers in southern Nigeria’s Rivers state, killing one, police and industry sources said.
The attack came a day after the oil region’s most vocal separatist group threatened to retaliate against Italian firm Agip and one state government in the Niger Delta over allegedly helping to free a Lebanese oil worker it was holding.
Nigeria already loses about half a million barrels of crude owing to domestic unrest.
Prices won a lift this week also as Valero Energy warned of a prolonged shutdown at a fire-hit refinery in Texas. Valero, the largest US refiner with an output of 170 000 barrels per day, said its McKee refinery in west Texas could be shut for weeks.
Meanwhile, the week’s jump in oil prices to above $61 for the first time this year comes after they had closed down more than $1 in New York on Tuesday, owing to expectations of warmer temperatures in the US. — Sapa-AFP