Tuesday July 7, 01:07 PM
Oil prices recover after slide
LONDON (AFP) - Oil prices recovered slightly on Tuesday after sliding a day earlier on concerns about energy demand amid a stumbling US economy.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in August gained 39 cents to 64.44 dollars a barrel in late morning London trade.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for August delivery, rose 34 cents to 64.39 dollars a barrel after shedding nearly three dollars on Monday.
Oil had slumped to 10-week lows on Monday after recent US data showed job losses surged more than expected to 467,000 in June, raising fresh doubts about the pace of recovery in the United States, the world's biggest energy user.
"Since the US employment data for June released last week, commodity markets appear more concerned that economic recovery in the developed economies will be a slow grind," said David Moore, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Investors are also monitoring the situation in Nigeria where militants have continued to carry out attacks on oil installations and kidnapped oil workers in the country's crude-producing Niger Delta region.
Militants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said Monday it destroyed a Chevron (NYSE: CVX - news) oil pipeline junction and seized six crew from a ship in the latest attacks on Nigeria's key money earner since an amnesty offered by the government last month.
MEND, which says it is fighting for a fairer distribution of the Delta oil wealth, is the strongest of a number of groups that have been fighting in the Niger Delta since 2006 and has targeted Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) , Chevron and Italian group Agip.
The unrest has helped substantially reduce Nigeria's oil output from around 2.6 million barrels a day in 2006 to some 1.8 million barrels today, putting pressure on crucial export earnings.
Nigeria was Africa's leading oil producer before the troubles in the Niger Delta started but is now level with Angola.
Elsewhere on Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared they would soon put forward proposals for talks to address the volatility of the oil market at this week's Group of Eight summit in Italy.
After meeting in France, Sarkozy said the world could no longer tolerate "yo-yo" fluctuations "from one excess to another."
Oil prices have slumped owing to the severe economic downturn after striking historic peaks of more than 147 dollars a barrel a year ago.
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