February 4, 2006	Saturday	Muharram 5, 1427

LONDON, Feb 3: Oil prices rebounded slightly on Friday, reversing two days of losses, as market attention returned to the nuclear crisis over Iran, analysts said.

The UN atomic agency on Friday delayed until Saturday a pivotal decision on sending Iran’s suspect nuclear programme to the UN Security Council.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, rose 37 cents to $65.05 per barrel in pit deals.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for March delivery increased 23 cents to $63.11 per barrel in electronic trading.

Crude futures “were modestly higher... as it corrected some of Thursday’s dip on continued concerns about Iran”, analysts at the Sucden brokerage said.

New York prices are more than $3 below their level on Monday, when the benchmark contract closed at $68.35.

Traders have chosen to focus on growing US energy inventories in the past few days, rather than the looming crisis over Iran’s alleged nuclear programme.

US crude stocks were roughly 10 percent higher than they were a year ago, according to the US Department of Energy weekly report published on Wednesday.

Crude stocks rose 1.9 million barrels in the week ended January 27 to total 321 million barrels, the DoE said, sharply outstripping US analysts’ expectations of a 383,000-barrel build.

“Oil prices have fallen since the release of worse than expected US oil inventory figures on Wednesday but the potential for the Iranian situation to worsen during the course of the IAEA meeting currently underway is keeping oil market participants wary,” said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.—AFP