Oil Industry Headlines: Week of October 19
As crude oil prices surpassed the $90 barrier this week, it seems that all the analysts could talk about was the prospect of $100 oil. “It’s not a question of when we’ll hit US$100 but how quickly. There are no bearish factors in the market right now,” Nauman Barakat, senior vice president of global energy futures at Macquarie Futures USA Inc. told Bloomberg. Turkish threats to “purge” Kurdish rebels operating just inside the northern Iraqi border and a significant 5.3 million barrel drop in U.S. crude stockpiles were among the factors fueling oil prices. Other disruptions in Iraq added to the tension already present in the Kurdish-controlled north. Insurgents attacked a pipeline in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk on Friday. The “attack near Kirkuk was the third on pipelines feeding the Baiji refinery since September 18, when Iraq’s northern oil export pipeline to Turkey was also damaged in a bomb attack,” reported Reuters. Only minor damage was reported.Published Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 6:11 pm and filed under Industry News.