Oil Prices Rise as Supply Concerns Outweigh Big Crude Stock Build

Investing.com – Oil prices rose on Thursday as expectations that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would start cutting supply overshadowed a big crude stock build last week.

for December delivery traded 0.6% higher to $56.77 per barrel at 1:08 AM ET (05:08 GMT) on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while for January 2019 delivery gained 0.6% to $67.04 a barrel on London’s Intercontinental Exchange.

Despite the rebound of the past two days, WTI remains about 27% lower from four-year highs of nearly $77 hit in early October.

OPEC, which meets on Dec. 6 in Vienna for its policy-setting meeting, is widely expected to agree on cuts of around 1 million bpd or more from its current production of above 33 million bpd.

“No one’s shorting the market at this point because everyone’s looking at OPEC and at what the Saudis might do if the prices go any lower,” said John Kilduff, a partner at New York energy hedge fund Again Capital.

“The Saudis have the power to rescue this market. They went from announcing a million barrels in cuts initially to 1.4 million barrels over a matter days. There’s the stirrings of a reaction coming and no one wants to be caught on the wrong side.”

Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported on Thursday the biggest weekly crude stock build in 21 months.

U.S. crude stockpiles jumped by nearly 10.3 million barrels last week, compared to the expectation of a build of just 3.2 million barrels.

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