Oil Prices Rise as Libya Declares Force Majeure On Its Supply

Investing.com – Oil prices rose on Tuesday amid reports that Libya declared force majeure on significant amounts of its supply.

 for August delivery were trading at $74.59 a barrel at 12:01AM ET (04:01 GMT), up 0.88%. for September delivery, traded in London, were also up 0.79% at $77.91 per barrel.

for September delivery were unchanged at 505.6 yuan per barrel on Tuesday.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared force majeure on loadings from Zueitina and Hariga ports on Monday, resulting in total production losses of 850,000 bpd due to the closure of eastern fields and ports.

Meanwhile, rising overall output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as in the U.S. continued to be cited as headwind for oil prices.

OPEC’s June output was 32.32 million barrels per day (bpd), up 320,000 bpd from May, Reuters reported on Monday.

U.S. oil production, which has surged by 30% over the last two years to 10.9 million barrels per day (bpd), were also in focus.

Oil prices fell on Monday after U.S. President .

“In the near-term, the level of OPEC production – deployment of spare capacity by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait (and ex-OPEC by Russia), and involuntary disruptions in Libya, Venezuela, Iran – are more important drivers of crude prices,” Goldman Sachs (NYSE:) said in a note.

“There are … signs that growth in China has slowed in recent months, particularly infrastructure spending by local governments. I would assume that infrastructure investment is quite energy intensive, so perhaps that had a knock-on effect to oil demand,” said Frederic Neumann, Co-Head of Asian Economic Research at HSBC in Hong Kong.

“At this stage, however, it appears more that growth in Asia is softening, rather than decelerating sharply,” he added.

In June, the Organisation of Oil Exporting countries (OPEC) decided to raise output following a key meeting in Vienna. While the decision was widely anticipated, the supply boost was less than some investors had anticipated.

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