04 September 2004	Saturday	18 Rajab 1425

LONDON, Sept 3: Oil prices steadied on Friday as fears that Hurricane Frances would disrupt offshore oil production eased, analysts said. Worries over supply threats in Iraq and Russia lingered on, they added.

The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in October rose three cents to $41.60 a barrel in late deals. New York's reference contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, gained 12 cents to $44.18 a barrel in early trading.

"Now it seems clear that Frances is not going towards the oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico, but into Florida, where there aren't any," Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish said.

"The fear was always that it would hit the Mexican Gulf and cause crude oil production to get shut in or disrupted, but if it heads up towards Florida, there should be no problem. People were fairly concerned on Thursday, but it is not a factor right now," he added.

Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch/Shell began evacuating 175 non-essential workers from some of its platforms in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday as a "precautionary measure", though production was not affected, Shell spokesman Simon Buerk said.

Markets steadied on Friday after another volatile day of trading on Thursday, when prices soared by over a dollar a barrel in London and New York but failed to sustain the advance, closing little changed.

In Iraq, meanwhile, a huge fire blazed out of control on a vital northern pipeline to Turkey for a second day, halting exports, Iraqi oil officials and police said.

Saboteurs exploded a bomb on the strategic pipeline at 6:30 pm on Wednesday by the town of Riyadah 50 kilometres south of Kirkuk, Iraqi officials said. They described it as the most serious attack on the north's oil infrastructure since the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Prices had already been rising on Thursday prior to news of the explosion on concerns over Yukos and Hurricane Frances. A Moscow court had on Tuesday granted a state prosecutor's request "to seize all resources in accounts belonging to the main producing divisions of the Yukos oil company", the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Thursday's price swings followed a $1.88 surge in New York on Wednesday, when prices snapped back after plunging by about 14 per cent in little over a week. -AFP