Oil prices up

AMSTERDAM. — Brent oil prices rose to a threeweek high yesterday as weekly US crude inventories are expected to have fallen steeply and geopolitical tensions around oil-rich Iraq and Iran raised risk premiums.

International benchmark Brent crude futures LCOc1 traded 39 cents higher at $58,27 a barrel at 1400 GMT. They reached their highest level in three weeks earlier in the session at $58,54 a barrel.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 traded at $52,18 a barrel, up 30 cents on the day. Weekly US crude inventories fell by 7,1 million barrels in the week to October 13 to 461,4 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said late on Tuesday.

Official US fuel inventory data is due later yesterday from the government’s Energy Information Administration.

“There are market expectations for a bullish EIA inventory report this afternoon so Brent is heading towards $60 a barrel again,” said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro.

Oil market investors were also closely following developments in the Middle East, where tensions in northern Iraq were threatening to disrupt oil flows.

Oil flows through the 600 000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Kurdish pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan have dropped off sharply to around 225 000 bpd, a shipping source said.

“It remains to be seen whether the Kurds, after withdrawing from the region they claim to be entitled to, will allow crude oil to be transported by pipeline across their territory to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan,” said analysts at Commerzbank.