VOL. XLV

No 22

3-June-2002

OIL PRICES

Weak Demand Takes More Than $1/B Off Crude Prices

Benchmarkprices fell further last week as market speculators continued to reduce theirlong position in crude oil. With the heat taken out of the Israel-Palestinesituation and the US-Iraq conflict for now, and reports of increasing crudesupplies, market traffic was dominated by hedge funds liquidating theirspeculative long position on crude oil and moving into other commodity markets.While OPEC is due to meet...