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Oil Slips After Hitting $362/20/2004 SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Oil prices edged back on Friday from four-week highs above $36 a barrel, but were supported as a build in U.S. crude stocks did little to ease concerns about supplies, traders said. Benchmark U.S. light crude for March was trading 12 cents lower at $35.88 a barrel after trading as high as $36.10 late Thursday, marking the highest since January 20 when prices hit $36.37 a barrel. April was down four cents at $34.60. "It has been up eight days in a row, so it's a logical point to take a little profit," a broker in New York said.April Brent crude on the International Petroleum Exchange was up 33 cents at $31.10 a barrel, catching up on the firmness in U.S. prices on Thursday. Crude futures bounced from an early sell-off on Thursday, prompted by a higher-than-expected rise in U.S. crude stocks. The weekly Energy Information Administration (EIA) stocks data showed a 4.9-million-barrel increase in crude stocks, against market forecasts for a 1.13-million-barrel build for the week ended February 13. Prices recovered when the market realized a large concentration of the crude build was on the U.S. West Coast, deemed as isolated geographically.Analysts said the market's firmness could be attributed to the government data that also showed crude stocks fell in the Midwest, which includes the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "Despite this large crude build there was actually a draw of 1.1 million barrels in PADD 2 (Midwest) which is what may be getting our price up," said Katherine Spector, energy strategist at Deutsche Bank .U.S. distillates stocks, which include heating oil, showed a steep decline of 5.8 million barrels to 112.5 million barrels, on strong demand, EIA data showed. Despite skepticism over OPEC's commitment to output cuts the market kept a wary eye over the cartel's moves. "Prices have been up eight straight days since the OPEC announcement," the New York broker said, adding the market would be watching closely to see if OPEC members would comply with quotas at a time when prices are high.He said the strong euro, which had surged as much as 30 percent against the U.S. dollar since November 2002, meant current crude prices were the equivalent of $27 a barrel for buyers using the European currency, within the range of OPEC's targeted price band. The euro hit a record high around $1.29 on Wednesday before slipping to $1.27 on Friday.Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Thursday OPEC's decision to reduce crude output from April remained firm and that the group could cut production again to defend prices. "The decision to cut is firm. If we see the need to cut again, we will do it," he told reporters at a gas conference in the eastern coastal city of Cumana. OPEC decided last week to cut production by one million barrels per day from April 1 and to move immediately to curb 1.5 million bpd of output over current quotas to stop stocks from building too heavily in the second quarter. Back to Original Article: News You Can UseContinue with:U.S. mortgage bonds slip after January CPI riseGreenspan Urges Care on Employment Issue
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