Oil prices have continued to climb in early trade in Asia after US government weekly figures on Wednesday showed a drop in oil and petrol inventories.

After adding $3 following the news, US light sweet crude continued to climb on Thursday, Stars wow Narnia fans at premiere ...
OPEC to meet June 22 ... adding 86 cents to stand at $116.86 a barrel in Singapore trade.

And London Brent climbed 72 cents to $114.19, extending overnight gains.

Disruptions to exports from the Caspian region following the Georgia-Russia clashes also underpinned energy prices.

Opec option

Oil giant BP has closed an oil pipeline and a natural gas pipeline running from its Caspian Sea fields through Georgia but neither have been damaged.

Another BP pipeline that runs through Georgia, the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, was closed last week after an explosion in Turkey.

Meanwhile Iran's Opec governor Muhammad Ali Khatibi has said this week that the cartel of oil producing nations should trim its oil output if demand falls in industrialised nations.

Despite the recent rises prices remain well off the peak of $147 a barrel hit in July.

"There are not that many factors that can drive prices higher," said Gerard Burg, a commodities analyst at National Australia Bank.

Government data

As the US economy slows, demand for oil has fallen and there are predictions that this trend will continue.

On Wednesday the US Energy Department's (EIA) Energy Information Administration data showed that crude oil imports had been hit by tropical storm Edouard.

Petrol stocks fell 6.4 million barrels to 202.8 million barrels in the week ending August 8 - marking a fall three time greater than expected, the EIA data showed.

But data from the EIA also showed that demand for oil in the first half of 2008 saw its sharpest drop in 26 years, compared to a year before.

(BBC)

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