Forexpros – Crude oil futures held steady on Monday, hovering close to the psychologically important level of USD100-a-barrel as markets awaited the outcome of a closely-watched Italian bond auction later in the day.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in December traded at USD99.05 a barrel during European morning trade, easing up 0.12%.
It earlier rose by as much as 0.45% to trade at USD99.56 a barrel, the highest since July 26, when prices rose to USD100.60 a barrel.
Italy’s president appointed former European Commissioner Mario Monti on Sunday to head a new government, following the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday.
Monti will be charged with implementing urgent reforms to end a crisis that has endangered the whole euro zone.
Meanwhile, traders remained cautious ahead of a EUR3 billion Italian 5-year bond auction, later in the day, in what was being seen as a key test of investor confidence in Italian debt.
Markets have been focusing on Italy in recent sessions, after the country’s borrowing costs rose above the 7% mark that prompted peripheral euro zone nations, Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek bailouts.
Elsewhere, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said his priority was to ensure the country receives its sixth tranche of bailout funds after Prime Minister Lucas Papademos was sworn in.
Crude prices found further support after preliminary data released earlier showed that Japan’s economy grew by 1.5% in the third quarter, broadly in line with expectations.
The gain comes after three quarters of contraction, and indicates an annualized rate of growth of 6.0%.
Japan is the world’s third largest crude oil consumer, after the U.S. and China.
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange, Brent oil futures for December delivery rose 0.25% to trade at USD113.20 a barrel, with the spread between the Brent and crude contracts standing at USD14.19 a barrel.
Chairman of Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation, Nuri Berruien said on Sunday that the country will produce as much as 800,000 barrels of oil a day by the end of 2011.
Libya, Africa’s biggest holder of crude oil reserves, has the capacity to produce roughly 1.6 million barrels of crude a day.
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