Oil Rises to 3-Month High on Concern Over Iran Atomic Program
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg)
Crude oil rose to a three-month high as Iran escalated its nuclear program, raising concern that shipments from OPEC's second-biggest producer may be cut.
``Every possible solution to the crisis could result in a cutoff of oil,'' said Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president of energy risk management at Fimat USA in New York. ``The only weapon the Iranians have to fight back with is oil and they won't hesitate to use it.''
Oil is currently $64.40
``We saw prices double in 1979 and the early 1980s because of Iran. That's a fact, but it doesn't mean it will happen again,'' said Bill O'Grady, an analyst with A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. ``All we have to do is slow the country's development of nuclear weapons, not occupy the country.''
Oil prices more than doubled in 1979 after a revolution in Iran slashed the nation's oil exports. By 1981 U.S. refiners were paying an average $35.24 a barrel, according to Energy Department figures, or $75.44 in 2005 dollars.
Iran produced 3.9 million barrels of crude oil a day last month, almost 5 percent of world output, according to Bloomberg figures. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, has 1.3 million barrels a day (i.e. very little)of spare production capacity.
``The West is running out of good options,'' said Rick Mueller, an analyst with Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Tilburg, the Netherlands. ``If we slap sanctions on Iran they cut their output. Their hand is a lot stronger than it has been because there is nobody that can make up for their output.''
Declining Old Fields
``When you are not successful economically or socially you begin to beat the war drum, which is the case in Iran,'' Abir said. ``High prices, not increased production, have increased Iran's income. Iranian production is at a standstill; they can hardly keep up with the decline of their old fields.''
Pump prices are 30 percent higher than a year earlier.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net.
UK scientists say bird flu virus may be mutating to human adapted form
01.12.2006, 03:29 PM
LONDON (AFX) - One of two viruses taken from two fatal cases of bird flu in Turkey showed similar mutations to previous flu viruses in Hong Kong and Vietnam in recent years, British scientists announced Thursday.
The British government-funded Medical Research Council (MRC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the analysis suggested the potentially deadly H5N1 strain is mutating towards a form adapted to humans.
The research revealed mutations from one case which have previously been seen in flu viruses from Hong Kong in 2003 and Vietnam in 2005, involving a protein that binds to receptors, or docking points, on the surfaces of cells.
John Skehel, director of the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research, and WHO said in a joint statement: 'Research has indicated that the Hong Kong 2003 viruses preferred to bind to human cell receptors more than to avian (bird) receptors, and it is expected that the Turkish virus will also have this characteristic.'
Fears about the H5N1 strain spreading between humans -- and triggering a global pandemic with the loss of millions of lives -- were heightened last week when 18 people were infected with the virus in eastern Turkey.
Three of the 18, all children, died. The deaths and infections were the first outside Southeast Asia.
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