[NYTr] World oil price tops 81 dollars

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP - Sep 18, 2007
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070918013923.9of2xfaz.html

World oil price tops 81 dollars

SINGAPORE (AFP) - World oil prices topped 81 dollars a barrel in Asia
on Tuesday, setting another record high in a market worried about tight
crude supplies.

At 9:23 am (0123 GMT) New York's main futures contract, light sweet
crude for delivery in October, jumped 51 cents to 81.08 dollars a
barrel.

The price passed the Monday night record in New York, when the contract
spiked 1.47 dollars to 80.57 dollars per barrel after an earlier
intra-day high of 80.70.

New York prices broke through the 78 dollar a barrel level last
Wednesday and went on to breach 80 dollars for the first time on that
same day, before easing.

Abdalla Salem El-Badri, chief of the Organisation of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC), said Friday that 80 dollars a barrel for
oil did not reflect the current supply and demand situation.

"I don't think 80 dollars will last," El-Badri said. "The fundamentals
do not support the price."

But OPEC's announcement last Tuesday that it would pump an extra
500,000 barrels of oil per day from November has provided little
comfort to the stretched market, analysts said.

Investor are worried that crude supplies are inadequate to meet demand
as winter approaches in the United States, the world's biggest energy
consumer, and other countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

The concerns spiked after the US Department of Energy reported last
Wednesday that US crude inventories fell by a sharper-than-expected 7.1
million barrels in the week ended September 7. The drop was almost
three times steeper than market expectations.

The closure of several US refineries in the path of Hurricane Humberto
also pressured prices late last week.