Heating oil steady ahead of Opec meet

28/05/2009

There has been little change in the price of heating oil futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (May 28th), with many investors awaiting news from the meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

Near-term heating oil contracts were stagnant during electronic trading as crude prices also held steady ahead of the Opec summit in Vienna.

The group is broadly expected to keep its current production tariffs unchanged, predicting that global economic recovery will help to support prices of crude and distillates such as heating oil naturally.

"Prices are holding not far from recent highs on reports that crude stocks fell in the US and as Opec is expected to seek better compliance to quotas,” said Christopher Bellew, senior broker at Bache Commodities Ltd, speaking to Bloomberg.

The US Energy Information Administration will publish its weekly fuel inventory statistics later today.