Bowing to pressure from Congress, the Energy Department said Friday that it would temporarily suspend a program to fill the nationÂ’s strategic oil stocks.
But the move, which some analysts and politicians had hoped would help break the rally in oil prices, failed to sway the market. Crude oil prices hit another record Friday. The decision on the oil stocks came the same day that Saudi Arabia announced a modest increase of 300,000 barrels a day in its oil production as President Bush visited the oil-rich kingdom. |