Oil Prices Fall as Iran Criticizes U.S.

Investing.com – Oil prices were lower on Friday amid increasing U.S. output and as Iran criticized the U.S. for asking Saudi Arabia to output more oil to cover Iranian exports.

decreased 0.86% to $65.38 a barrel as of 11:02 AM ET (15:02 GMT). Meanwhile futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., fell 1.46% to $76.19

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of a nuclear accord deal with Iran last month and has unofficially asked Saudi Arabia and other Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countrie and Russia countries to increase supply.

, saying OPEC would not heed the appeal.

Reuters reported May 25 that OPEC was considering raising supply by one million barrels per day as early as June, as the organization faces losses from Venezuela and Iran.

The organization is set to meet in Vienna on June 22. OPEC has been cutting crude output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to prop up oil prices. The pact began in January 2017 and is set to expire at the end of 2018.

Prices were also held back slightly by concern that the U.S. is increasing production. U.S. oil inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels in the week to June 1 to 436.5 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said. Analysts had forecast a decline of 2.0 million barrels.

Domestic oil production – driven by shale extraction – hit a record of 10.8 million barrels per day (bpd), according to the EIA’s weekly report. Only Russia currently produces more, at around 11 million bpd.

Investors are looking ahead to the weekly s oil rig count at 1:00 PM ET (17:00 GMT), with expectations that the U.S. has not slowed production.

In other energy trading, decreased 0.81% at $2.1023 a gallon, while fell 0.54% to $2.1681 a gallon. was down 1.43% to $2.888 per million British thermal units.

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