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Oil spurts to 9-year peak
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March 7, 2000: 7:14 a.m. ET
Brent crude jumps above $30 a barrel in London for first time since 1991
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Crude oil prices touched fresh nine-year highs in London Tuesday as continuing production curbs by key exporters and supply disruptions in the North Sea gave a further boost to a market that's been on a year-long bull run.
Brent crude futures on the International Petroleum Exchange jumped 63 cents to $30.26 a barrel, their highest since 1991 and more than three times the sub-$10 a barrel levels plumbed near the end of 1998 at the height of a supply glut. Crude traded around $30.13 a barrel midday in Europe.
Local brokers attributed the latest rally to a year-long regime of export quotas engineered by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and several non-OPEC members, including Mexico. Those cutbacks have led to a sharp drawdown in oil inventories, along with calls from some quarters for an easing of the quotas.
Producers have come under pressure recently from major consumers such as the United States to relax supply limits. The output restrictions have also pushed U.S. oil prices above $30 a barrel for the first time since the Gulf War. U.S. demand for oil products rises as the approach of better summer weather prompts motorists to use their cars more.
The goal of the producers is to ease benchmark U.S. light crude back below
$25 a barrel, according to some officials.
Oil ministers from OPEC powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran are due to meet Wednesday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to discuss the oil market amid signs of a rift between the two countries. Published reports have said Saudi Arabia favors an immediate increase in supplies once the current OPEC curbs expire March 31. Iran, by contrast, is said to want to maintain the status quo.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has estimated that oil prices could soar above $35 a barrel if OPEC defers a production increase until the fourth quarter of this year. But it says prices could fall to around $25.50 a barrel by mid-August if OPEC boosts output by 1.7 million barrels a day.
Last week, delegates from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico said their countries were set to propose that the cartel raise oil output by 1.2 million barrels a day in April to ease prices.
On Tuesday, the head of the International Energy Agency, Robert Priddle, urged OPEC to lift crude oil output from April 1.
"There is no sign at present that it will be possible to rebuild stocks at the end of this year even to the low levels of the end of 1999," Priddle was quoted as saying at an energy conference in Abu Dhabi, capital of OPEC member United Arab Emirates.
He said the world needs "substantial additional supplies from the second quarter of this year." 
--from staff and wire reports
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