Oil price tops $81 in Asian trade
World oil pries topped $81 a barrel in Asia on Tuesday, setting another record high in a market worried about tight crude supplies.
By Agencies |
SINGAPORE: World oil pries topped $81 a barrel in Asia on Tuesday, setting another record high in a market worried about tight crude supplies.
At 9:23 am New York's main futures contact, light sweet crude for delivery in October, jumped 51 cents to $81.8 a barrel.
The price passed the yesterday night record in New York, when the contract spiked $1.47 to $80.57 per barrel after an earlier intra-day high of 80.70.
New York prices broke through the $78 a barrel level last Wednesday and went on to breach $80 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 a barrel for oil did not reflect the current supply and demand situation.
"I don't think $80 will last," El-Badri said. "The fundamental 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 US, 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.
At 9:23 am New York's main futures contact, light sweet crude for delivery in October, jumped 51 cents to $81.8 a barrel.
The price passed the yesterday night record in New York, when the contract spiked $1.47 to $80.57 per barrel after an earlier intra-day high of 80.70.
New York prices broke through the $78 a barrel level last Wednesday and went on to breach $80 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 a barrel for oil did not reflect the current supply and demand situation.
"I don't think $80 will last," El-Badri said. "The fundamental do not support the price."
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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 US, 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.
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