IEA'S Mandil says market well supplied, crude to ease further

IEA'S Mandil says market well supplied, crude to ease further

Tokyo (Platts)--16Nov2004


The International Energy Agency is "happy" to see a downslide in crude prices
and expects a further drop, its executive director Claude Mandil said in Tokyo
Tuesday. 

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Mandil said:
"Very high prices are bad for the economy. The market is currently well
supplied and we are happy to see the price decline. There is more room for
further decline in prices." The front-month December West Texas Intermediate
futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $46.87/bbl on
Monday, down 15% from a historic high of $55.17/bbl recorded on Oct 26, as
supply fears are receding amid building up of stocks and expectations of a
mild winter. Mandil said the Chinese government may also temporarily slow down
on its plan to build strategic stocks: "In principle, it is bad for money to
build stocks at high prices. The Chinese government may wait to build stocks."
The Chinese government plans to set up about 13.8-mil mt of strategic crude
stocks between 2006-2008, 55 days worth of its 2003 imports of 91-mil mt.

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