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Oil markets calmer after Bush dispatches Powell

The oil market took on a calmer tone yesterday following US President George W. Bush's peace push for the Middle East, despite a call from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for Islamic oil-producing countries to suspend exports to the West.

Reference Brent North Sea crude for May delivery slipped to US$27.22 a barrel in early trading from US$27.31 on Thursday.

In New York, light sweet crude May-dated futures slumped almost a dollar a barrel to US$26.58 a barrel on Thursday.

Bush's warning to Israel and the Palestinians on Thursday to step up peace efforts, and news of US Secretary of State Colin Powell's peace mission to the region had helped calm the feverish oil market, traders said.

So much so that even calls for oil supplies to be choked off to the West and other supporters of Israel to try to pressure Prime Minister Ariel Sharon into withdrawing his army from Palestinian territories had little impact on prices.

"I call on all Arab and Islamic oil-producing countries to suspend their exports to the West and countries who have relations with Israel for a symbolic period of one month," Khamenei said.

"The oil belongs to the people and can be a weapon against the West and those countries who support the savage regime of Israel," he added.

But OPEC has ruled out a collective oil embargo by the mostly-Arab producer group.

"As far as the organization is concerned there are no talks of an oil embargo because no rational and sane human being would really back such a move, because it will certainly backfire on all of us," an OPEC source in Vienna said.
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