Crude Oil Slips; Growing U.S. Supplies Ease Security Concerns Crude oil fell for a second day as expectations of rising U.S. stockpiles eased concern about attacks against the oil industry from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia. A government report tomorrow will probably say U.S. crude supplies, already at an eight-month high, rose for a third week, a Bloomberg News survey showed. The stockpiles provide a cushion for any disruption in supply. Concern over disruptions also eased after Saudi Arabia thwarted an assault on an oil-processing center. ``U.S. weekly inventory reports show increase over increase and oil availability is quite good,'' said Tobias Merath, an oil analyst with Credit Suisse in Zurich. ``The perception is that the Saudis have some of the best security in the world, and now that the attacks have failed, it will be even tighter.'' Crude oil for April delivery declined as much as 63 cents, or 1 percent, to $60.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where it was down 34 cents at 9:34 a.m. London time. Prices have tumbled more than $10, or 14 percent, from an August record $70.85. Brent crude for April slid 20 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $60.79 a barrel on London's ICE Futures exchange. U.S. crude stockpiles probably grew by 1 million barrels the week ended Feb. 24, according to the median of 9 analyst forecasts in the Bloomberg survey. The Energy Department will publish the weekly supply statistics tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. Washington time. Gasoline supplies may be unchanged. Four analysts expected a drop, three a gain and two no change. Distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, probably fell 1.8 million barrels. U.S. refiners probably operated at 86.6 percent of capacity last week, unchanged from the previous week, as plants undergo maintenance after the heating season and before demand for gasoline picks up in summer. The refinery-utilization rate was as high as 90.6 percent in December. ``We expect quite a heavy turnaround season for refineries'' because of last year's hurricane season, Merath of Credit Suisse said. ``We could see some falling inventories of gasoline in coming weeks. This is actually a good time to catch up with maintenance because of lower margins,'' or reduced profit from making fuels. Saudi oil output and exports were unaffected by the attack at Abqaiq, which handles two-thirds of Saudi oil, about 7 percent of global output. Security forces yesterday killed five suspects who may have been involved in the attempted attack on Feb. 24. ``Not only did the attack fail, but the Saudis proved capable of solving the crisis,'' said Dariusz Kowalczyk, a senior investment strategist at CFC Seymour Ltd., a Hong Kong-based security firm. ``That's reduced the geopolitical risk premium while inventories are expected to have increased.'' A rebel attack Feb. 18 against one of Nigeria's largest oil- export terminals, the Forcados platform, forced Royal Dutch Shell Plc to halt pumping of 455,000 barrels a day through at least yesterday, taking out almost a fifth of the country's production. Militants have threatened to expand their offensive and cut off 30 percent of output from Africa's largest producer. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the source of more than a third of the world's oil, shouldn't reduce its quotas for output when it meets March 8 in Vienna, Maizar Rahman, Indonesia's OPEC governor, said yesterday. The group has pumped almost as much as it can for about a year, building up stockpiles and creating a buffer for disruptions to supply. Saudi Arabia, which pumped about 9.5 million barrels a day last month, holds most of OPEC's spare production capacity. The kingdom increased production during the 2003 Iraq war to compensate for dwindling Iraqi exports. It also raised output in 1979 when the Islamic revolution curbed Iran's output. PIN/BLOOMBERG