London, Sept 26: Oil prices ended higher last week but off fresh 32-month highs of over $24 a barrel struck after the United States said it would not sell oil from reserves in the week OPEC vowed to keep supply tight.Benchmark Brent blend crude oil ended nine cents higher at $23.91 cents a barrel after rallying to $24.06 a barrel - the highest level for front month Brent since January 1997.Brokers and dealers said that some selling pressure had reemerged in the last half-an-hour of trade but that fundamentally the picture remained bullish. The rise followed news that the U.S. Department of Energy was not considering selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) because heating oil supplies were adequate.
A department spokeswoman said data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration indicated that at this point home heating oil supplies were at the high end of the normal range.
U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said late on Thursday that he was seriously considering a request fromDemocratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York for oil to be sold from the reserve at the rate of several hundred thousand barrels a day to help push down heating oil prices this winter.
Brokers said the market was still well underpinned by fears of a winter supply shortage following OPEC's decision on Wednesday to stand by its output curbs. Oil prices soared on Thursday, inspired by OPEC's decision to keep in place supply curbs that had more than doubled world crude prices so far this year.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.