World oil prices drop in wake of plane bomb plot
Afp, London
Crude prices fell Thursday on prospects that air traffic could suffer following the discovery of a plot in Britain to attack flights, and on signs that the biggest US oil field will continue to produce despite pipeline corrosion, traders and analysts said. In London, Brent North Sea crude for September delivery shed 98 cents to 76.30 dollars per barrel in electronic trading. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, tumbled one dollar to 75.35 dollars per barrel in electronic deals before the official opening of the US market. Police said Thursday that a foiled plot to blow up aircraft flying from Britain to the United States was "an attempt to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale". They hinted that more arrests were likely after 21 people, most of them of Pakistani origin, were detained over an alleged plot to simultaneously blow up aircraft. "These potential foiled terrorist actions could reduce people's air travel, that's the sort of logic behind" Thursday's lower prices, Bache Financial trader Tony Machacek said. Crude futures had begun falling during Asian trading hours on hopes that British oil major BP would avoid a complete shutdown of its Alaska operations, dealers said. Prices had shot up earlier this week, with Brent striking a record high 78.64 dollars, after BP said it had started shutting down its oil field in Prudhoe Bay as it repairs a pipeline leak caused by corrosion. A complete shutdown would halt production totalling 400,000 barrels of oil per day, or 8.0 percent of daily US output. But BP America chairman Bob Malone said Wednesday that BP would try to keep at least 200,000 barrels per day of oil gushing. Engineers would make a decision between Friday and Monday on this, he said.
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