SINGAPORE, May 1 - Oil prices rose 1.6 percent on Thursday, bringing gains in the last two sessions to almost $1 a barrel after OPEC said it might intervene to stop a steep slide, while data showed only marginal restocking of U.S. fuel tanks. U.S. light crude climbed 40 cents to $26.20 a barrel, extending Wednesday's 56-cent rise in New York. Brokers said latest figures for U.S. crude inventories from the government's Energy Information Administration showed a smaller than expected increase in supplies, which together with OPEC's warning had reversed a six-day price fall that sent oil more than 10 percent lower.
"The EIAs weren't as bearish for prices as the market expected and that's triggered a pop higher following on from yesterday's gains when OPEC said it might re-evaluate its quotas," said a broker based in New York. The EIA, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, reported national crude stocks rising by 1.8 million barrels in the week to April 25 to 288 million barrels as imports fell from the previous week's record levels. The increase fell below average market expectations of a 2.85 million barrel rise and left inventories nearly 12 percent below levels at the same point last year. U.S. gasoline inventories, which should be rising at this time of year in preparation for the peak demand summer holiday season, were up 4.4 million barrels, the EIA said, by far outpacing forecasts of a 1.6 million gain. "You're still seeing production coming back really strong following maintenance, and imports are still coming in much stronger than anticipated," said Jim Ritterbusch, energy market analyst and president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Illinois. The EIA said gasoline imports into the United States ran at 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) last week and domestic production jumped 1.6 percent to 8.4 million bpd. OPEC President Abdullah al-Attiyah said on Wednesday that OPEC ministers were in contact over a slide in prices since last week when the cartel agreed a smaller-than-expected cut to the surplus output that it was pumping during the war on Iraq. "I am very concerned about the decline in prices. I am in contact with other ministers and are working out something to intervene in the market," Attiyah, also Qatar's oil minister, said.
When Attiyah announced last Thursday's agreement he said it was likely to be the first in a series of cuts, the second of which could be decided at a June 11 meeting in Doha.//