Oil prices rose Tuesday in Asia as investors eyed the possibility that OPEC may cut production just ahead of the second quarter, when gasoline demand in the Northern Hemisphere usually becomes the central focus of the market, AP reported An explosion at a 70,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Texas may have also boosted prices, but the primary worry is that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may cut supplies next month to support prices in a US$85-US$100 a barrel range, said Tetsu Emori, commodity markets fund manager at ASTMAX Futures Co. in Tokyo. OPEC may do so just ahead of the second quarter when oil prices have started an annual run-up the past five years as people looked ahead to «gasoline demand coming in the spring,» Emori said. The explosion Monday at the Alon USA refinery at Big Spring, Texas, injured four workers, with one employee hospitalized for burns. All workers were accounted for about an hour after the explosion, according to Blake Lewis, a spokesman for Alon. A fifth person was injured when her car was struck by debris on a nearby major highway, Big Spring Mayor Russ McEwen told the Odessa American newspaper. She was treated and released from a hospital. Fires that lingered after the blast were extinguished late Monday afternoon (Tuesday morning in Asia), Lewis said. The next step will entail getting into the site to determine what happened and how to make repairs. Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose 83 cents from Friday's floor close to US$96.33 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Singapore. The price is now about US$9 a barrel more than the closing price in the U.S. on Feb. 6. Trading volumes have been thin so far this week due to the President's Day holiday in the United States _ where the floor session was closed Monday _ and the start in London of International Petroleum Week, a reputed oil industry conference. The U.S. Energy Department, the International Energy Agency and OPEC have all cut demand forecasts for this year. Also, a seasonal slump occurs in the first quarter of every year, and «people are worrying about a U.S. recession ... giving some effect to oil demand in the U.S.,» said Emori.
