Commodities Monday, June 29, 1987 : Oil Futures Prices Advance

Oil futures moved higher in heavy trading Monday, but analysts said the restrained price advances reflected some doubts about OPEC’s weekend production agreement.

On other markets, soybeans, grains and pork bellies were sharply lower and precious metals were mixed.

The August crude oil contract at the New York Mercantile Exchange advanced as much as 46 cents a gallon before it settled with an 11 cent gain at $20.35 a barrel.

“The fact that prices really didn’t skyrocket showed that traders are skeptical about the numbers that OPEC presented,” said Andrew Lebow, an analyst in New York with Shearson Lehman Bros. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to limit production to 16.6 million barrels a day for the remainder of the year, low enough to hold prices steady at $18 a barrel, or increase them somewhat. However, said Lebow, if the market really believes this will be the amount of crude oil that OPEC nations will pump, futures prices would have moved substantially higher.