April 8, 2006	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1427

LONDON, April 7: Oil prices eased on Friday on profit-taking after expectations rose that Nigeria, the biggest African exporter of crude oil, might recover production lost after militant attacks in the Niger Delta.

Meanwhile, Opec president and Nigerian energy minister, Edmund Daukoru, said that he did not see a cut in the cartel’s production quota this year if crude prices remained at their current levels.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, dipped 69 cents to $67.25 per barrel in pit trading.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for May delivery slid 63 cents to $67.21 per barrel in electronic deals.

However, price falls on Friday were limited by figures published on Thursday that had showed weak US gasoline reserves.

Traders said that comments from Royal Dutch Shell’s exploration chief, Malcolm Brinded, that production at the EA offshore field in Nigeria — shut in since February because of attacks by militants — could restart soon was prompting some selling.

“Any headline like that will see the market move a bit lower,” said Lee Elliot, a broker at Man Financial.

The Anglo-Dutch energy giant said on Friday that it hoped to assess soon the damage to its facilities in the Niger Delta.

“As soon as it is safe to do so, we would like to commence assessment of damage and take necessary steps to clean up the affected areas,” the group said in a statement, adding that 455,000 barrels per day of production were shut in.

Crude futures had flirted with $68 a barrel on Thursday on fears of a supply crunch linked to falling US gasoline supplies and tensions in Nigeria and Iran, dealers said.

“After four days of gains we would expect a correction and usually it’s at the end of the week when profit-taking emerges,” added Daruisz Kowalczyk, a Hong-Kong based senior investment strategist with CFC Seymour Securities.

“The geo-political risk premium is now there, the gasoline impact is there, all those factors are already built into the price, so we should go lower from now.”

London’s Brent crude contract hit a high of $68.24 on Thursday, slightly lower than its record of $68.89, set in August 2005.

According to analysts at the Sucden brokerage, a resumption in Nigerian production would lead to lower oil prices.

“If production resumes in Nigeria it increase the volume of light sweet crude available to the export market, a type of oil that is in particular demand from the US,” they said.

The United States “has a lot of refineries set up to handle light sweet crude, which produces a higher proportion of gasoline per barrel, than the heavy, sour, crude that comes from much of the Middle East”, they added.

Nigeria is the biggest supplier of light sweet crude to the US market.—AFP