AP News, February 19th, 2007
Oil prices fell Monday amid news of the release of an American oil worker kidnapped in Nigeria.
Worries of escalating unrest in Africa's largest crude producer had pushed oil futures up more than $1 a barrel on Friday.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery lost 28 cents to $59.13 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange mid-afternoon in Singapore. April Nymex crude dropped 7 cents to $59.79 a barrel. April Brent crude oil futures on London's ICE futures exchange lost 4 cents at $58.91 a barrel.
Trading was quiet in Asia due to the Lunar New Year holidays.
The March Nymex crude contract, which was to expire Tuesday, gained US$1.40 to settle at US$59.39 a barrel Friday on a U.S. warning that Nigerian militants may be planning to expand their activities beyond the restive southern petroleum-producing regions.
Nigerian police said Sunday gunmen who seized the American oil worker Jan. 23, along with a British colleague, handed him over unharmed to state officials late Saturday. Police gave no further details. The Briton had earlier been released. No group ever took public credit for the seizure and the main militants in the region denied responsibility.
Meanwhile, Iran's Oil Minister said Saturday the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would not institute any further cut in its output ceiling at its March meeting in Vienna if the price of crude oil maintains its current upward trend.
"If the (price) trend remains as so, there will probably be no additional cut proposed over the 500,000 barrels a day that went into effect in February," Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh said on the sidelines of an international refining forum in Tehran.
OPEC oil ministers will meet in mid-March in Vienna to decide the cartel's oil output in the second quarter of the year. OPEC decided in December to cut production by 500,000 barrels a day from Feb. 1, which followed a cut of 1.2 million barrels a day in November in order to stem falling oil prices.
Heating oil futures Monday dropped 0.69 cent to $1.6665 a gallon while natural gas prices rose 6.7 cents to $7.57 per 1,000 cubic feet.
