By SPA
Singapore : Oil prices retreated Tuesday after jumping almost US$2 in the previous session on concerns about potential supply disruptions in Venezuela and Nigeria, AP reported.
Crude futures were supported by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s threat on Sunday to cut off oil sales to the U.S. in retaliation for court orders freezing assets belonging to Venezuela’s state oil company, and by reports of new violence in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer and a major supplier to the U.S.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery lost 55 cents to US$93.05 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Singapore. On Monday, the contract jumped US$1.82 to settle at US$93.59 a barrel.
The oil price went up fairly sharply last night, and it’s still at high levels by the standard of recent days and certainly well within the high end of the ranges we saw last night, said David Moore, a commodity strategist with Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.