Oil Prices on Roller Coaster

Petroleum futures prices fell sharply but recovered in volatile trading Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

A report that Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani projected that oil prices could fall to $18 a barrel triggered the selling, said Peter Beutel, a petroleum analyst in New York with Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co.

The report came from London, where Yamani was addressing the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Beutel said.

However, analysts said the remarks were made in an off-the-record talk and may have been taken out of context, and prices subsequently recovered.

Steve Chronowitz, director of futures research in New York with Smith Barney, said he believed that Yamani said that crude oil could fall to $18 a barrel but only under extraordinary circumstances.

The oil market has been unsettled this week by a series of reports, one of which was a rumor--later denied--that Yamani had been murdered or had died.

Other reports that Saudi Arabia plans to increase production at lower prices still were not publicly confirmed Friday.