Oil held above $61 today after rebounding from a six-month low as speculators fear a deepening fall could prompt Opec to rein in output.
US crude rose ten cents to $61.55 a barrel earlier this morning, extending a 90-cent rally last night. London Brent was 16 cents higher at $60.96 a barrel.
Oil prices dropped to a new six-month low of $59.52 a barrel yesterday as news of BP restoring output at Alaska's Prudhoe Bay added to a sense of healthy global supplies, and investors fretted over the pace of US economic growth.
But they later rebounded on technical buying after prices fell below the psychologically important $60 level.
In other news, Ryanair announced today it has hedged its fuel requirements for the period from January to March 2007 at a rate equivalent to $73 per barrel of Brent crude.