Second day of New Year brought record growth of oil prices for last two weeks

/IRBIS,Jan.04, 01/ - Kazkommertsbank informed that second day of New Year brought record growth of oil prices for last two weeks. On Jan 3 futures market prices grew by 3% in average and again reached a psychological barrier of $25 and 28. On IPE and NYMEX closing prices of February futures equalled to: Brent - 25.03 (+0.73/+3.0%) fluctuated between 25.30-24.20, Light Sweet - 28.00 (+0.89/+3.3%) fluctuated between 28.14-27.08. Oil price growth was conditioned by market expectations of late December lowering in USA reserves and measures to stimulate US economy such as cut in FED rate by 50 points. At the same time, market is still under influence of forthcoming OPEC decision to cut oil supply. It was estimated that decrease could reach as far as 2.0 bln barrels daily including non-member countries. Today morning Light Sweet prices decreased in NYMEX/ACCESS system in response to American Petroleum Institute (API) report. Despite expected fall in American reserves in the late December, the API instead registered slight increase. As of 10:40 Moscow time February futures fell to 27.97 (-0.03). Oil reserves grew by 64 th barrels, reserves of fuel oil grew up by 3.5 mln barrels and gasoline by 2.7 mln barrels. Dealers claimed that the short-term market would be under influence of official statistics on US reserves and OPEC responses. Expected resistance levels of the oil price today is $28.15 and 28.50 per barrel.