Oil prices inched back up towards $66 today as fears over persistent global supply disruptions countered recovering output from Ecuador and an expected slight increase in US crude stocks.
US light crude was 20 cents higher at $65.85 a barrel by 6.27am Irish time in the new front-month October contract, after September expired yesterday up 10 cents at $65.45. London Brent crude rose 20 cents to $64.70 a barrel.
A series of production outages had overshadowed more comfortable crude stock levels in the United States and pushed the market back towards record levels above $67 early this month.
Production in Ecuador was recovering but remained around two-thirds of its 530,000 barrels per day (bpd) level last night, as the government and oil companies came close to a deal with protesters who crippled output last week.
Protesters in major exporter Nigeria ended a week-long siege of oil facilities yesterday, paving the way for talks with Royal Dutch Shell over compensation for an oil spill and fire in 2003.
Such protests underlined fears over global supply security and refining constraints that have helped keep US oil at an average of $53.79 this year versus $41.47 in 2004.
Dealers were also relieved to see Iraq's southern oil exports of some 1.5 million bpd restart yesterday after being stopped for 10 hours by a power cut.
But with some crude production in the UK North Sea and India also offline, dealers worry Opec - already pumping nearly flat out - will strain to make up any unexpected outages.