VOL. XLV

No 51/52

23/30-December-2002

OPEC/OIL PRICES

Crude Prices Boosted By US-Iraq Tension And Venezuela Strike

Crude prices were boosted last week by heightened expectation of US military action against Iraq and by lowered hopes of an early end to the Venezuelan oil workers strike. The Venezuela factor particularly affected WTI and OPEC Basket prices, widening the WTI-Brent differential to more than $2/B and thereby improving the economics of European deliveries to the Gulf Coast market....