Crude Oil Trades Above $71 After Rising on Nigeria Field Attack

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil traded little changed above $71 after rising yesterday when an attack by Nigerian militants shut a field operated by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, reducing output from Africa’s largest producer.

Shell said it closed the Estuary field near the Forcados export terminal after the assaults. Oil is poised for a quarterly gain of 44 percent, the biggest since 1990. The International Energy Agency, an adviser to 28 developed nations, lowered its five-year forecast for global crude demand because of the economic slump.

“Nigeria exports roughly 2 million barrels a day of crude oil, which is not a huge percent of global supply, but any disruption to global supplies will cause prices to go up,” said Mike Sander, an investment adviser with Sander Capital in Seattle.

Crude oil for August delivery fell 3 cents to $71.46 on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 8:59 a.m. in Sydney. Yesterday, the contract gained $2.33, or 3.4 percent, to settle at $71.49 a barrel, the highest close since June 12.

Hostilities in the Niger River delta have cut more than 20 percent of the country’s oil exports since 2006. Shell closed the Estuary field after attacks on production wells, Tony Okonedo, a spokesman, said by phone from Lagos yesterday. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it attacked the field.

Rejected Amnesty

The militant group on June 25 rejected an amnesty proposal from President Umaru Yar’Adua, saying the offer failed to address key issues. Under the terms, fighters in the Niger River delta have until Oct. 4 to surrender their weapons, renounce violence and accept rehabilitation to avoid prosecution.

A U.S. government report will probably show that crude-oil inventories dropped for the seventh time in eight weeks. Supplies slipped 1.6 million barrels in the week ended June 26, according to the median of nine estimates by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The Energy Department is scheduled to release its weekly report tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in Washington.

The IEA cut its oil-consumption estimates for every year through 2013 by about 3 million barrels a day, the agency said in the Medium-Term Oil Market Report yesterday. Consumption will average 86.76 million barrels a day in 2012, the first year demand will rise above 2008’s level of 85.76 million, according to the Paris-based agency.

Gasoline for July delivery climbed 6.17 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $1.9358 a gallon in New York, the highest settlement since June 18. It was the biggest one-day increase since May 18.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is unlikely to raise output at the group’s next meeting in September, oil ministers from Algeria and Qatar said yesterday.

“It would be very difficult to think of an increase in production at this stage” as the market is “oversupplied,” Chakib Khelil, Algeria’s oil minister, told reporters in Doha, where he and Qatari minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah are attending the Gas Exporting Countries Forum.

Brent crude oil for August settlement yesterday rose $2.07, or 3 percent, to $70.99 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange, the biggest gain since June 4.