July 25, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1424

NEW YORK, July 24: Oil prices edged higher on Thursday, supported by mid-week data showing a fresh decline in already tight US oil stocks.

US benchmark crude stood 13 cents higher at $29.80 per barrel. In London, benchmark Brent crude futures were up 6 cents at $27.84 per barrel.

Oil prices retreated more than $2, or 7 per cent, early this week as hedge funds took profits from a rally that had pushed up crude nearly 25pc since early May.

Some of the losses have been recouped since US Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday showed a 2.3 million barrels fall in US crude stocks and a 1.6 million barrels drawdown in gasoline supplies last week.

Crude stocks in the world’s biggest energy consumer are 11 percent below last year’s levels, but the latest data were no worse than analysts had predicted.

“I think that the inventory data were fairly benign, and that probably the next thing that can give us a direction is pre-OPEC meeting rhetoric,” said Steve Turner of investment bank Commerzbank.

Early soundings from Gulf sources ahead of the July 31 Opec meeting in Vienna suggest output levels will be left unchanged despite high oil prices and Iraq’s postwar failure to restore exports fully.

Iraq, which was producing nearly three million barrels per day of crude oil before the US-led invasion, has seen its capacity drop sharply due to sabotage and looting.

A Gulf source said Baghdad’s output capacity now stood one and two million bpd.—Reuters