NEW YORK: Brent crude oil was little changed in choppy trading yesterday as investors moved to square positions after Brent posted one of its biggest weekly falls this year due to reduced concerns over exports from strife-torn Iraq.
Prices have dropped more than $2 from a nine-month high of $115.71 hit on June 19 as output from Iraq’s southern oilfields — which produce most of the nation’s 3.3 million barrels per day (bpd) — remained unaffected by fighting in the north and west.
“A lot of people are very long, the market’s gotten a little top-heavy, and we’re susceptible to a correction,” said Stephen Schork, editor of The Schork Report in Villanova, Pennsylvania.
Libya’s eastern oil port of Hariga completed the loading of a tanker carrying 600,000 barrels of crude oil destined for Italy on Friday after a protest by security guards ended, the port operator said, further easing supply worries on the world market.
Brent was one cent lower at $113.20 a barrel at 11.20am EDT (1520 GMT) after falling 79 cents in the previous session. It has lost more than one percent this week.
US crude fell 33 cents to $105.51 a barrel after ending Thursday 66 cents weaker at $105.84.
If fighting between Sunni militants and Iraq government forces is contained in regions north of Baghdad then the chance of supply disruptions will shrink, risk analysts said.
“Two weeks after the beginning of the latest chapter in the history of modern-era Iraq, only an actual disruption to supply would trigger (major) buying in the oil market,” said David Hufton, managing director of London brokerage PVM Oil Associates.
Reuters
