Oil dips after record run close to $140

LONDON (AFP) - Oil prices dropped more than a dollar on Monday after rocketing to record heights near 140 dollars per barrel late last week, but some analysts warned of a bubble that could burst soon. Crude soared beyond 139 dollars on Friday after a shock jump in US unemployment sent the dollar reeling and Wall Street plunging by more than three percent amid fears of sharply slower economic growth. New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, gave back 1.27 dollars to 137.27 dollars a barrel on Monday. The contract had spiked on Friday by 10.75 dollars a barrel the biggest-ever one-day jump after soaring to an all-time high of 139.12 dollars. On Monday, Brent North Sea crude for July delivery slid 1.73 dollars to 135.96. Brent had hit a lifetime pinnacle of 138.12 and gained 10.15 dollars in value on Friday. "The extreme price volatility that we are now seeing is characteristic of bubbles that are about to burst," said Capital Economics analyst Julian Jessop. "The next big move is therefore likely to be down." He also argued that the recent jump in oil prices was not related to the fundamentals of supply and demand, but to ongoing weakness in the US currency. "Friday's jump ... provides the clearest evidence yet that the oil market is increasingly detached from fundamentals." "A relatively minor reversal in sentiment towards the dollar was magnified into a much larger move in oil prices," added Jessop, who also said that further highs could not be ruled out. In contrast, analysts at US investment bank Goldman Sachs warned that prices could reach 149 dollars this summer because of "tight underlying fundamentals of the oil market." Crude oil began surging higher last Thursday after European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet signalled that eurozone interest rates would head higher in July. That sent the dollar tumbling against the euro because of the prospect of widening interest rate differentials, dealers said. The weakening US currency stimulates demand for oil because dollar-priced goods become cheaper for foreign buyers. Petromatrix analyst Olivier Jakob said that prices "reversed course violently when Trichet shocked the financial system by pointing to an interest rate hike in July. "This lead to a 16-dollar-per-barrel rally in slightly more than 24 hours. "Trichet has managed what no war, no hurricanes, no OPEC (news) has ever managed to do," he added in reference to factors which have caused prices to spike higher in the past. The market was also driven higher by simmering geopolitical tensions after reported remarks about Iran's nuclear programme by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz. Analysts said the comments fanned fears of a possible conflict in the oil-rich Middle East. Over the weekend, eleven nations that guzzle nearly two-thirds of the world's energy called for an urgent hike in global oil production. Energy ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) industrial powers met on Sunday in the northern Japanese city of Aomori with officials from China, India and South Korea in the wake of the record oil price spike. The 11 nations represented voiced "serious concerns" over the level of oil prices and said there was an "urgent need for increased and timely investment in the energy sector." Oil prices have soared five-fold since 2003 due to a variety of factors, including turbulence in the Middle East and rising demand in emerging economies such as China and India. This year alone, prices have rocketed by almost 40 percent amid growing fears about tight supplies, the weakening US currency and production outages in key producers particularly in Nigeria.

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