LON­DON-Oil stead­ied around US$115 a bar­rel yes­ter­day as in­vestors weighed fur­ther stim­u­lus ac­tion by the US Fed­er­al Re­serve against plen­ti­ful sup­plies of oil. Some an­a­lysts be­lieve the cen­tral bank will launch a third round of bond-buy­ing due to re­cent weak US eco­nom­ic da­ta. Ad­di­tion­al stim­u­lus would be like­ly to weak­en the dol­lar and boost the price of dol­lar-de­nom­i­nat­ed com­modi­ties like oil.

But abun­dant sup­plies of oil are like­ly to keep a lid on prices. The Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Pe­tro­le­um Ex­port­ing Coun­tries said its out­put had risen by 254,000 bar­rels per day last month, de­spite the Ju­ly 1 start of a Eu­ro­pean Union ban on Iran's oil ex­ports. And Sau­di Oil Min­is­ter Ali al-Nai­mi said on Mon­day the King­dom was con­cerned about climb­ing oil prices, with Brent ris­ing by more than 25 per cent since late June.

"The high oil price is thus com­ing un­der fire both from the US, the largest con­sumer of oil, and from Sau­di Ara­bia, the biggest ex­porter, which is like­ly to pre­clude any in­crease in prices," said a Com­merzbank in a re­search note. "That said, spec­u­la­tion about the an­nounce­ment of re­newed bond pur­chas­es at this week's meet­ing of the Fed should al­so en­sure that prices do not fall."

Brent crude was trad­ing 25 cents up at US$115.06 a bar­rel by 1000 EDT, af­ter set­tling up 56 cents on Mon­day. US crude was up 55 cents at US$97.09.

Reuters