BS: Crude Declines From One-Week High as OPEC Boosts Output Ceiling
Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Oil fell from a one-week high in New York as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to raise its production ceiling, moving the group’s supply target nearer to current output levels.
Futures declined as much as 1.8 percent, after surging 2.4 percent yesterday in the biggest gain in almost four weeks. OPEC agreed to a production limit of 30 million barrels a day, Venezuela’s Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said at the group’s meeting in Vienna today.
Crude for January delivery declined as much as $1.75 to $98.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $99.59 at 12:53 p.m. London time. Yesterday, the contract gained $2.37 to $100.14, the highest settlement since Dec. 7. Prices are up 7.9 percent this year after climbing 15 percent in 2010.
Brent oil for January settlement on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange was at $108.20 barrel, down $1.30. The contract expires tomorrow. The more-actively traded February future lost $1.33 to $107.75. The European benchmark was at a premium of $9.61 to New York-traded West Texas Intermediate grade. The spread was a record $27.88 on Oct. 14.
--With assistance from Yee Kai Pin in Singapore and Ben Sharples in Melbourne. Editor: John Buckley
To contact the reporter on this story: Sherry Su in London at lsu23@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net; Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net
