OPEC Weekly Oil Prices Drop Slightly

The weekly average oil prices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) dropped slightly to 98.24 U.S. dollars per barrel (dpb) last week, the Vienna-based cartel said on Monday.

The weekly average prices kept dropping for two consecutively weeks by 3.10 dollars after the record prices of 101.34 dpb set on the second week of this month.

Due to the reweaken of the dollars and the storage drop of the oil products of the U.S. as well as the explosion of Iraq's oil pipelines, the daily prices kept rising in the first four trading days last week from 96.15 dpb on Monday to 100.36 dpb on Thursday and only retreated slightly to 99.77dpb on Friday.

Experts said that the upcoming second season was the traditional low season for oil consumption, which normally would lead to a price drop.

Meanwhile, according to the data offered last Saturday by Petrologistics, an international crude oil research firm in Geneva, the oil supply of OPEC increased 0.3 percent by 100,000 barrels in March than February.

However, OPEC's president, also Algeria's energy minister, Chakib Khelil, said last weekend that the upcoming conference next month in Rome would maintain the current decision of no output increase.