U.S. NYMEX oil prices fell slightly on Thursday, closing close to a five-month high, and traders believe that the production cut agreement led by OPEC will further tighten global crude oil supply.
The market also attached great importance to the U.S. government report released on Wednesday, which showed that the weekly increase in domestic crude oil supply in the United States exceeded expectations and production rose sharply. However, these data also show that oil stocks fell more than expected as the Gulf of Mexico region recovered from Hurricane Harvey, and refining activity began to warm up.
US benchmark November delivery West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI) fell 14 cent or 0.3%, closing at $50.55 in NYMEX, and once hit $50.81 intraday. FactSet data shows that when the contract was settled in October the day before, it had reached a high of 4 months.
Meanwhile, Blunt crude oil for November delivery rose 14 cents or 0.3%, to close at $56.43 a barrel. The closing price on Wednesday was $56.29, the highest level since late February.
Oil prices will return to soft before OPEC meeting
"Broadly speaking, the market is concerned not only with the production trends in the United States, but also with the (Friday) meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC member states. If (oil) export controls are discussed, it may trigger another wave of rebound in oil prices." Co-editor Tyler Richey said.
OPEC and other major oil-producing countries will meet in Vienna on Friday to discuss the impact of the production cap agreement and the balanced supply and demand relationship. "The bottom line is that the market maintains range fluctuations because fundamentals are no longer bearish and the technical outlook is good." "But if OPEC (again) disappoints, or if the U.S. oil-producing power surges to new highs in the coming weeks, then things may change soon."
EIA reported on Wednesday that total U.S. crude oil production rose by 157,000 barrels per day to 95,100 barrels per day in the week ending September 15. This is a bit more than 572,000 barrels a week ago.
htmlHurricane Harvey has disrupted the operations of many refineries since the end of August, and U.S. oil stocks, including refined and gasoline, have been falling. The EIA report pointed out that refined oil inventories fell by 5.7 million barrels last week. "All refineries around the world will try to operate with all their might to make up for the shortcomings of essential oils, which is increasing the exploitation of subsea wells."At the same time, the market will also closely monitor the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum because the region's oil exports are quite large. Jakob said that since the vast majority of Kurds export oil through Türkiye, how Türkiye's response to the results is very critical, and the international community is fully opposed to the referendum. Data from other products of
NYMEX show that natural gas prices have risen due to weekly supply exceeding expectations.
"Dow Jones" pointed out that the EIA report showed that natural gas supply increased by 97 billion cubic feet in the week ended September 15. Analysts and traders expect inventory to grow by 89 billion cubic feet.
1 October delivery natural gas closed at $22.946 per million British thermal unit, down 14.8 cents or 4.8%, closing at its lowest since September 8.
NYMEX October delivery gasoline fell 1.1 cents or 0.7% to $1.644 per gallon, while October delivery hot fuel rose less than 1 cents to $1.815 per gallon.
