ENERGY Oil bounces back Posted Mon, 09 Oct 2000

US crude oil prices have bounced, recovering some of the losses incurred after the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced it had found buyers for all the 30 million barrels it is releasing from the nation's strategic reserves.

November crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $30.86 (R223.73) a barrel on Friday, up 33 cents on the day, and two cents higher than it ended last week.

The rebound was after a drop of 90 cents, or about 3%, on Thursday after the DOE announced that 11 oil companies would take the 30 million barrels of crude President Bill Clinton has ordered to be released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

"Crude oil prices rebounded today now that the market has fully digested all of the bearish news out the last two weeks," said Thomas Blakeslee, analyst with Energy Merchant.

Two weeks ago, oil prices reached a post-Gulf War high of $37.80 (R274.05) a barrel before the Clinton administration stepped in to say the oil reserve would be tapped and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah said the world's largest oil producer would not allow prices to go sky-high.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 09, 2000