FEAR may account for more than a quarter of the price of crude oil, which yesterday slipped back again as the market reacted to the current truce in Lebanon and the diminished impact of the BP shutdown in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

A leading energy analyst believes that fear and anticipation of shortages has added a premium of $20 per barrel to the oil price. The Brent crude price remained subdued, edging back 28 cents to $73.25 after the previous day’s $1.75 per barrel slide. On Monday, oil speculators took fright as BP hinted that it would be able to restrict the loss of output from Prudhoe to half the original estimate of 400,000 barrels per day.

Leo Drollas, of the Centre for Global Energy Studies, believes that Prudhoe Bay is no more than an irritation to a market that is preoccupied by fears of the next disturbance to supply. By adjusting the CGES pricing model to reflect a lower forward stock cover in a market less anxious to build up stocks, he calculates a theoretical price of about $53 per barrel.

Dr Drollas believes that Nigeria could account for a third of the $20 fear premium. The periodic interruptions to exports from the Niger Delta, caused by kidnappings and attacks on infrastructure removed 750,000 barrels per day in July, according to the International Energy Agency.

According to Dr Drollas, the market needs light, low sulphur crude. However, as much as 80 per cent of the spare capacity is heavy “sour” crude from Saudi Arabia that is difficult and expensive to refine into valuable products, such as petrol and jet fuel. Nigerian and other West African crudes are of higher quality and Angola has become China’s No 1 supplier, purchasing more than 500,000 barrels per day from the African state.

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