NEW YORK, April 2--Oil prices surged to a record near $58 a barrel on Friday, powered by a forecast the market could spike above $100 due to robust global demand and tight spare capacity, Reuters reported.
Prices have climbed around 30 percent this year, with big-money speculative funds buying heavily on signs that rapid demand growth in Asia's emerging economies and the United States would strain world supply.
US light crude settled up $1.87 to $57.27 after peaking at $57.70 a barrel, breaking the previous record of $57.60 hit March 17. London's Brent crude climbed $2.22 to $56.51 a barrel.
In related news OPEC president Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah said Saturday the organization should start talks to consider pumping an additional 500,000 barrels per day as oil prices continue to surge.
"(On Friday) prices rose again to record highs. We have to monitor the market for some time and restart our negotiations to consider increasing the (additional) 500,000 barrels," he told reporters.
OPEC ministers in their last meeting on March 16 in Iran decided to raise output by 500,000 barrels per day, to 27.5 million, and had promised to raise it again by a similar quantity if price levels remained steady.
"I believe negotiations will continue. If they (OPEC members) agree, we will increase (production)," the minister said, without elaborating.

PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, April 2--India said on Friday it hoped free trade with its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan would happen within one to two years, as their sluggish peace process moves forward.
Since the two stepped back in 2002 from the brink of what would have been their fourth war since independence from Britain in 1947, ties have warmed, but trade between the two countries has remained elusive.
"We can see trade between India and Pakistan happening in the foreseeable future," Sanjaya Baru, spokesman for the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Reuters.
"I don't see why it can't happen in the next year or two", said Baru, who is accompanying Singh on a visit to Mauritius.
Barriers to commerce cemented by more than a half-century of hostility mean companies selling everything from wheat to tyres to Pakistan are forced to make costly detours into countries like Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates.
These indirect shipments are estimated to be at least six times greater than cross-border trade.
"From our side, we are fully prepared for a fast track trade openness with Pakistan and we've repeatedly said to Pakistan that we would like to see normal trade relations," said Baru.
He said one of the Pakistan government's concerns was that it would be flooded by Indian goods, but Pakistani businessmen on a recent visit to India seemed more concerned about the threat of Chinese goods.
"The commerce ministers on both sides have been talking to each other and more importantly, business men have been talking to each other," said Baru.
Trade is on course to rise more than 150 percent in the financial year which ended in March to about $500 million, but businessmen predict it could reach $10 billion within five years of signing a free trade agreement.
Businessmen say India could buy cotton yarn, vegetables and sports goods from Pakistan and sell everything from tea to steel in return.
But Pakistan, whose $66 million worth of exports to India in the eight months to November were dwarfed by imports of $315 million.
Islamabad fears freer trade could only deepen the deficit.

A three-meter maize-corn robot symbolizing the haphazard composition of genetically modified plants has been erected in front of the Council of Ministers building in Brussels, accompanied by 20 Greenpeace activists carrying banners saying 'Stop GMO invasion'. (Reuters File Photo)

BRUSSELS, Belgium, April 2--The European Commission demanded an explanation Friday from US authorities over how 1,000 metric tones of genetically-modified maize entered the EU despite a ban, AFP reported.
EU consumer protection commissioner Markos Kyprianou condemned the way the maize, developed by Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta, had been let onto the European market.
"The European Commission deplores the fact that a GMO which has not been authorized through the EUs comprehensive legislative framework for GMOs, nor by any other country, has been imported into the EU," he said.
"We are writing to the US authorities asking them to guarantee, by taking the appropriate measures, that present and future exports of maize to the EU do not contain GMOs which are not authorized for the EU market," he added.
The European Union (EU)'s executive arm is also seeking clarification from Syngenta about the import of the unauthorized genetically modified maize type Bt10.
It said that an estimated 1,000 metric tons of Bt10 food and feed products may have entered the EU labeled as a different form of maize, Bt11, since 2001, the date from which the inadvertent release of Bt10 started.
Syngenta, formed from the 2000 merger of Zeneca and Novartis, admitted last month having accidentally sold to the United States genetically modified maize (corn) that had not been approved by US authorities.
The company said the essential protein of its Bt10 maize variety is identical to its Bt11 line, which has been approved for farming and consumption in the United States, the European Union and Japan since the late 1990s.
EU environment commissioner Dimas said Brussels was taking action to prevent the banned maize type reaching consumers.
"To avoid any adverse effect on human and animal health or the environment ... the Commission has asked (EU) member states to carry out appropriate control measures to stop Bt10 entering their territory," he said.

WASHINGTON, April 2--New US government figures Friday showing a sharp rise in Chinese textile imports, prompted renewed calls for safeguards imposed by Washington, AFP reported.
The preliminary data for textiles and apparel showed total imports from China increased 63 percent in the first three months of 2005 compared with a year ago to more than 2.8 billion square meters, the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) said.
The report highlighted fears from US industry groups and labor unions, which have been calling for Washington to implement a so-called safeguard mechanism under World Trade Organization rules to limit growth in Chinese textile and apparel imports.
US officials have so far taken no action but said they would step up monitoring to get data more quickly, to determine whether any action is appropriate.
"The data shows that China's surge is no one-month anomaly. It is a clear trend undeniably demonstrating severe damage in the US market," said AMTAC executive director Auggie Tantillo.
Tantillo said the data underscore the need for quick action.
"Already 17,200 US textile and apparel manufacturing jobs have been lost in 2005," he said. "These job losses will be just the tip of the iceberg unless the US government immediately self-initiates safeguards."
AMTAC said that according to Chinese Customs data, China's exports to the United States in the most sensitive apparel categories are up 349 percent for the first two months of this year while prices are down 31 percent.
US importers have however accused the textile groups of promoting "hysteria" and say freer trade is benefiting all countries.
The end of quotas enshrined in the 1974 Multifibre Arrangement and later in the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing was expected to have a major impact not only on wealthier nations that import goods, but on other developing countries that may lose market share to China.

FRANKFURT, Germany, April 2--The eurozone's sluggish economy may force the European Central Bank to keep interest rates steady and could render even more uncertain the direction of its monetary policy, AFP reported.
Worrying signs surfaced this past week in the 12-nation eurozone--an erosion in confidence on the part of businesses and consumers, high unemployment in France and Germany, declines in manufacturing activity.
After slowing growth in the second half of 2004, the recent indicators raised fears that the economic slump was not passing as quickly as hoped.
Officially, ECB policymakers, who will meet next Thursday and are expected to keep their benchmark interest rate at two percent, remain confident.
"I am cautiously optimistic and maintain that the economic recovery will take hold during 2005," said Lucas Papademos, the ECB vice-president, in an interview this week.
But that message seems to be more and more out of sync with reality.
The bank that sets monetary policy for the countries sharing the euro has in fact been somewhat embarrassed. The ECB had begun to prepare financial markets for its first interest-rate increase since June 2003, most likely in the fourth quarter of this year.
The ECB policymakers had pointed to the low cost of credit that was creating an excess of liquidity, and in particular the strong real estate market in several countries that risked provoking a spurt in inflation.
But weak economic growth in the eurozone threatens to defer that scenario.
The anticipated increase in rates had been "reinforced by certain statements by the ECB about the inevitability of rates going up again and also after the revision" of the European Stability and Growth Pact, said Patrick Artus, director of economic research at CDC Ixis in a study published Friday.
"We think however that the economic outlook for the eurozone makes a rate increase with the next year or more extremely unlikely," Artus said.

DaimlerChrysler employees assemble Smart cars at the company's Smartville plant in Hambach, France. (AFP File Photo)

FRANKFURT, Germany, April 2--The German-US automaker DaimlerChrysler is this year to slash a third of the jobs at its ultra-small car division Smart, which has suffered losses totaling 3.5 billion euros ($4.5 billion) since its launch in 1998, AFP reported.
The division's works committee said 700 jobs would be eliminated this year, from a total of 2,200, while nearly 300 additional posts could go between now and 2007.
The job cuts are part of a restructuring that should cost a total of 1.2 billion euros, slash costs by around 30 percent in the next two years and boost earnings by 600 million euros in 2007.
"The new business model aims to put the small-car brand onto a financially sound basis, with the goal of breaking even in 2007," the company added in a statement to the stock market.
"The program also includes significant workforce reductions," the statement said, without providing details. But it stressed that the Smart management "aims to achieve these reductions in a socially acceptable manner."
Smart employs 1,300 people at its main factory in Boeblingen near Stuttgart in southern Germany and a further 850 employees work at its site in Hambach, eastern France.
The division lost 400 million euros last year according to company sources, forcing a rethink of its strategy.
DaimlerChrysler said the measures to restructure Smart would have an impact on its earnings forecast for 2005, especially for the first half-year.
However, it still expected "a slightly higher operating profit for the full year 2005 compared to 2004".
One of the cost-cutting measures would abandon a project to develop a Smart sports utility vehicle (SUV), while production of the Smart roadster open-top sports car will cease at the end of 2005.
The new strategy for the Smart concept includes the "intensified development" of the successor to the two-seater 'fortwo' model, "including fulfilling the requirements for the US market", the statement said.
The Smart announcement Friday came the day after DaimlerChrysler said it was recalling 1.3 million Mercedes cars built after June 2001 as part of what it said was a quality improvement offensive.

YANGON, Myanmar, April 2--Myanmar's military government has revoked the licenses of two leading private banks accused by the United States of laundering money linked to the narcotics trade, Reuters quoted state media as reporting.
Asia Wealth Bank and Myanma Mayflower Bank "were found to have violated banking regulations enacted by the central bank", state-owned radio and television reported late Friday.
Their banking licenses were revoked effective March 31, the report said, adding that central bank officials would refund deposits held by the two banks.
The report did not say what regulations had been violated.
But the decision comes nearly a month after the US State Department criticized Yangon for slow progress since a probe of the two banks was launched in 2003.
"As we all know, the US government once accused these two banks of being involved in laundering drug money," said a Myanmar banking source, who declined to be identified.
Myanmar, a major drug producing and trafficking nation that forms part of the infamous Golden Triangle, has taken some steps against money laundering in recent years.
But it is still listed as an "uncooperative" country by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a watchdog sponsored by the Group of Seven industrialized nations.
Being blacklisted by the FATF, whose 30 members are mostly Western states, can damage a country's prospects for attracting investment from abroad.
Ruled by the military in various guises since 1962, the former Burma is battling sanctions imposed by the United States and Britain over the house arrest of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and the slow pace of political reform.
In June 2002, Myanmar enacted a law to control illegally obtained money and properties and boost cooperation with international organizations.