By KUNA,
KUALA LUMPUR : Oil transactions in Asian markets were up for the second day in a row on Wednesday after OPEC hinted at the possibility of a further production cut with the aim of creating a demand-supply balance.
OPEC President, Angola’s Oil Minister Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, had said that the organizations would be adopting “a new measure” during its meeting in Vienna in mid-March, should the current production slash fail to raise oil prices.
The organization had reduced its production last month by 1.05 million barrels per day (without making an official declaration), and all factors indicate that OPEC would be making yet another decision to cut production.
March delivery light crude was up 35 cents, or 0.9 percent, to USD 41.13 per barrel (pb) just hours after electronic transactions on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed down. It was at USD 41.06 pb in Singapore this morning. At the end of the trading session last night, the contracts were up 70 cents, or 1.8 percent, to USD 40.78.
Since the beginning of this year, the prices had dropped an overall eight percent, and stood at 54 percent lower when compared to last year.
OPEC accounts for 40 percent of the world’s total supply of crude oil, and the organization had agreed on December 17 to bring down its production ceiling in an attempt to curb the sharp drop in oil prices — considered the worse since 2001.
Member states of OPEC, with the exception of Iraq, produce a total of 26.2 million barrels per day.
US reserves of crude oil were up three million barrels by the end of this week, and markets await further confirmation of this once the weekly report of the US Energy Information Administration is published later today. (end) asf.ema KUNA 040901 Feb 09NNNN