Oil prices held firm yesterday, clinging to gains made last week as the key heating oil consuming region in the northeast of the US braced for the year's first real cold snap.
London Brent crude futures last traded six cents up at $45.02 (€34.45) a barrel. Dealing was thin with New York markets shut for the Martin Luther King holiday.
US crude ended Friday dealing at $48.38, taking the week's gains to 6.5 per cent amid a slew of production hitches, shipping delays and supply anxiety.
Icy weather forecast this week for the United States northeast, the world's biggest heating oil market, was expected to boost demand and test already tight heating oil inventories, which are 7 per cent below year-ago levels.
Private forecaster Meteorlogix said yesterday it expected colder than normal weather in the US northeast for the next 10 days.
Algerian Energy Minister Mr Chakib Khelil said the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would need to defend prices if it saw a sharp drop in demand.
OPEC meets on January 30th to discuss output policy for the second quarter, when seasonal oil demand ebbs, after cutting output by one million barrels per day (bpd) from the start of this month.
The market has also been bolstered by a host of global supply disruptions.
Norwegian producers made some headway in restoring outages, bringing back 140,000 bpd of Draugen output and slowly restarting the Vigdis and Snorre oilfields, which have a combined full capacity of more than 200,000 bpd.
Traders see Iraq's export outlook as less promising. Dealers have said that they fear the country's polls, set for the same day as OPEC's meeting, may spur sabotage attacks of the sort that have halted northern crude exports for a month.
