Investing.com – Crude oil prices rebounded mildly in Asia on Thursday as the market awaits full details of a widely expected extension of OPEC-led output curbs – albeit with a few wrinkles.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for January delivery rose 0.21% to $57.42 a barrel, while on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, rose 0.32% to $62.73 a barrel.
OPEC and key ally Russia will extend output curbs for nine months, but likely review the deal in June of 2018 depending on market conditions, according to reports.
Six ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia met in Vienna on Wednesday and decided to extends the oil output curbs of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to the end of 2018 – and discussed other related matters without detailing them.
“That’s one of the recommendations,” Kuwait’s Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouq told reporters when asked whether the committee had agreed on a nine-month extension, among other matters.
A formal announcement on the pact will be made on Thursday.
A concern is a significant supply response from US shale drillers and other key producers if oil drifts much higher than current levels. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that a more nuanced plan was possible.
“The market has not been fully balanced yet. Joint efforts are needed after April 1. Everybody has recommended that the agreement could be extended and tomorrow such concrete details will be discussed,” Novak said.
One area that may surprise on the upside is if OPEC members Nigeria and Libya output are asked to cap output at 1.8 million bpd and 1 million bpd respectively for the nine months after receiving exemptions for the earlier curbs from January 2017 to March 2018.
Overnight, crude oil prices settled lower on Wednesday after data showing crude stockpiles fell for the second straight week failed to offset an unexpected build in product inventories ahead of the OPEC meeting.
Crude oil prices came under pressure after a mostly bearish Energy Information Agency (EIA) inventory report showed crude stockpiles fell more-than-estimated, but both gasoline and distillates supplies unexpectedly rose.
Inventories of fell by roughly 3.4 million barrels for the week ended Nov. 24, beating expectations of a draw of 2.3 million barrels.
Gasoline inventories – one of the products that crude is refined into – rose by 3.6 million barrels, well above expectations for rise of 1.2 million barrels, while supplies of distillate – the class of fuels that includes diesel and – unexpectedly rose by about 2.8 barrels, missing expectations for a draw of 230,000 barrels.
U.S. crude oil production has risen more than 15% to 9.66 million bpd since mid-2016, not far from top producers Russia and Saudi Arabia.
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Source: Investing.com
