Price of OPEC crudes falls to $13.02 per barrel

Price of OPEC crudes falls to $13.02 per barrel

LONDON (Reuters): The price of OPEC's basket of seven crudes fell to $13.02 on Wednesday from $13.28 a barrel on Tuesday, the OPEC news agency said quoting the OPEC Secretariat.

The basket comprises Algeria's Saharan Blend, Indonesia's Minas, Nigeria's Bonny Light, Saudi Arabia's Arabian Light, Dubai of the UAE, Venezuela's Tia Juana and Mexico's Isthmus.

Meanwhile, the benchmark Brent blend ended the day down 35 cents at $14.25 a barrel, driven down in late activity by a burst of selling on the New York unleaded gasoline futures market.

Dealers said calls from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ministers for extra reductions on top of the 1.245 million barrels per day (bpd) pledged in March would need to be substantiated before the saturated market rallied.

"OPEC may talk about cutting back again but there's no concern in the market about shortage -- oil remains plentiful," said a trader in London.

A reminder of the heavy inventories burdening western markets came with weekly figures for the United States showing crude and gasoline stocks rising again.

Algerian Oil Minister Youssef Yousfi said on Tuesday that OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers should cut as much as another one million bpd of output.

Yousfi, an architect of last month's landmark Riyadh agreement, said he was optimistic of securing agreement between producers in and outside the cartel on fresh reductions.

He said the extra cuts would be needed at least for the next six months.