- NEW YORK (Reuters) - World
oil prices hit fresh two-year highs Thursday (NY time) as UN weapons inspectors
said time was running out for Iraq to show it was disarming, and winter
fuel supplies in the United States fell to critical levels.
-
- Benchmark Brent crude oil in London hit US$32.00 per
barrel, its highest since December 2000, before slipping back to US$31.55
by late afternoon, up 19 cents on the day.
-
- US light crude was 32 cents higher at US$34.29 a barrel,
less than a dollar below two-year highs hit last month. Heating oil prices
made even bigger gains, hitting their highest level in 26 months, after
a slump in stored supplies last week.
-
- UN inspectors said the final clock was ticking for Baghdad
on Thursday after US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented evidence
alleging it had concealed equipment from suspected banned weapons programmes.
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- Fears of a supply disruption from Iraq were compounded
by shortages from Venezuela, where a nine-week opposition strike has slashed
exports and eaten into US supplies.
-
- "The Powell presentation was key to starting the
end-game on Iraq," said Peter Gignoux at investment bank Schroder
Salomon Smith Barney.
-
- Powell showed the UN Security Council intelligence from
spy satellites, telephone intercepts and Iraqi defectors alleging Iraq
had concealed parts of suspected weapons programmes.
-
- UN inspectors said Iraq had to show progress in disarming
or face an unwelcome judgment from the world body in a February 14 report.
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- Traders fear war in Iraq could disrupt oil flows from
the Middle East, which supplies about 40 per cent of world exports, at
a time when supplies are curtailed in Venezuela.
-
- Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said late Wednesday that
output had recovered to 1.9 million barrels per day, two-thirds of normal
levels, thanks to his efforts to break a strike aimed at forcing elections
in the South American country.
-
- Strike leaders, who have been removed from state oil
company Petroleos de Venezuela, pegged output at the lower level of 1.3
million bpd, 40 per cent of pre-strike levels.
-
- The strike tightened fuel supplies in the United States,
which usually takes about 13 per cent of its imports from the Latin American
country.
-
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- US government data showing a 10 million barrel drop in
distillate stocks last week, including winter heating oil, marked the second
largest weekly drop on record.
-
- Demand was stoked by a cold snap in the world's largest
heating oil market in the US northeast, and by distributors stocking up
because of the threat of war in Iraq. Refiners have slashed production
because of rising crude costs.
-
- March heating oil futures scaled a 26-month peak of US$1.049
a gallon, while outright prices in the New York Harbour barge market made
an even steeper jump to US$1.15 a gallon.
-
- Utilities buy heating oil and jet kerosene to run power
plants when natural gas prices become expensive. Benchmark March natural
gas futures on NYMEX hit a 24-month high of US$5.90 per mmBTU.
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