Post Peak

Crude oil traded near yesterday's record of $100 a barrel as OPEC officials said the group can't curb prices and the U.S. refused to release emergency supplies.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is unable to counter the rally, Libyan and Qatari officials said today. The U.S. doesn't plan to tap strategic reserves, a spokeswoman for President Bush said yesterday. A report today is expected to show U.S. commercial stockpiles fell for a seventh week.

``The U.S. government's refusal to open the SPR, especially with cold weather approaching, is helping to keep prices near that $100 record,'' said Robert Laughlin, a senior broker at MG Global Ltd. in London. ``OPEC, while under pressure after yesterday's high, will ignore it.''

Crude oil for February delivery rose as much as 36 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $99.98 a barrel, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract traded at $99.27 at 1:38 p.m. in London. Yesterday, it jumped $3.64, or 3.8 percent, to a record close of $99.62 a barrel after touching $100 earlier in the session.

The International Energy Agency won't use its strategic oil stockpiles to ease record prices, Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the agency, said in an interview today. Tanaka said he disagreed with OPEC that the strength in prices isn't because of demand and supply fundamentals.

`Fragile Market'

``The supply-demand situation is a basic determinant to the direction of the price,'' he said. ``The current level of spare capacity and the current level of stocks is showing that the market is quite fragile.''

OPEC's production is already close to maximum capacity and the organization ``can do nothing'' to curb prices, Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp., said in a telephone interview from Tripoli today.

OPEC, supplier of more than 40 percent of the world's oil, can't lower the price because it's driven by speculative investors rather than fundamentals, Al Arabiya reported, citing Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah.

Brent crude for February settlement rose as much as 66 cents, or 0.7 percent, to a record intraday price of $98.50 a barrel. The contract traded at $97.47 at 1:39 p.m. on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange. Yesterday, it gained $3.99, or 4.3 percent, to a record close of $97.84.

``The OPEC 10 is being too conservative,'' said Harry Tchilinguirian, an analyst with BNP Paribas SA in London. ``Energy-intensive growth in emerging markets will remain robust in 2008, and is partly shielded from a slowdown in advanced economies.''

Stockpile Decline

U.S. crude oil inventories probably fell for a seventh straight week last week to a three-year low, a Bloomberg News survey indicated. Stockpiles fell 2.18 million barrels in the week ended Dec. 28 from 293.6 million, according to the median of responses by 12 analysts before a report later today from the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.

OPEC kept its production targets unchanged at its last meeting on Dec. 5, rebuffing calls by the U.S. to pump more oil. The group next meets Feb. 1. Other OPEC officials said the group is ready to boost output to cover any shortages.

``If the dispute in Nigeria leads to a shortage, OPEC will consider it appropriate to meet the shortfall,'' Iran's OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili said today in a telephone interview from Tehran.

Nigeria Violence

Indonesia, the second-smallest OPEC producer, will propose that the group increase supply by at least 500,000 barrels a day to lower prices, Maizar Rahman, OPEC governor for Indonesia, said by telephone today.

Oil's push to $100 a barrel was aided by renewed violence in Nigeria, forecasts for a decline in U.S. inventories, disruption at a European refinery, and a weaker dollar.

The dollar's 11 percent slide last year against the euro helped boost oil prices because it made commodities cheaper for buyers outside the U.S. and attracted investors seeking a hedge against inflation.

Nigerian militants killed 12 people in the oil city of Port Harcourt on Jan. 1. Violence has halted about 500,000 barrels a day of output, almost a quarter of the country's total, since the beginning of 2006.

``The situation is still very bullish,'' said Gerrit Zambo, an oil trader at BayernLB in Munich. ``I can imagine it going another $5 to $10 from here on technical grounds. There's still a lot of money that has to go somewhere and investment in oil is still totally in fashion.''

A pipe explosion at Petroplus Holdings AG's 110,000 barrel- a-day Ingolstadt refinery in Germany, reported by newspaper Donaukurier, added to concerns about product supply during the period of peak winter demand.

Saudi Aramco, the world's largest state-owned oil company, delayed the start of production from the 500,000 barrel-a-day Khursaniyah field and said it will meet market demand with existing spare capacity.