Crude Oil Prices Mixed, U.S. Production Worries Persist

Investing.com – Crude oil prices were mixed on Thursday, as concerns over rising U.S. shale production persisted despite ongoing supply cut efforts by global oil producers.

The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude January contract was down 11 cents or about 0.21% at $56.48 a barrel by 10:00 a.m. ET (14:00 GMT), the lowest since December 12.

Elsewhere, for February delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London was up 16 cents or about 0.26% at $62.59 a barrel, the lowest since December 8.

Prices came under pressure after a larger-than-expected surge in U.S. gasoline stockpiles outweighed a larger-than-expected decline in inventories.

Also weighing on crude prices was a rise in production to record highs as data showed weekly U.S. crude production jumped by 73,000 barrels a day to 9.78 million barrels per day (bpd), bringing output close to levels of top producers Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Separately, the International Energy Agency on Thursday warned that there were signs the ongoing rise in U.S. crude oil production could continue into 2018.

The U.S. report came after OPEC revealed in its monthly report that production in November, fell by 133,000 bpd to 32.5 million bpd but revised upward its 2018 forecast for non-OPEC output.

Fears that rising U.S. output would dampen OPEC’s efforts to rid the market of excess supplies have been recently weighing on sentiment, according to market participants.

The producer group, along with some non-OPEC members led by Russia, agreed last week to extend current oil output cuts for a further nine months until the end of 2018.

The deal to cut oil output by 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd) was adopted last winter by OPEC, Russia and nine other global producers. The agreement was due to end in March 2018, having already been extended once.

Elsewhere, were up 0.53% at $1.663 a gallon, while declined 0.74% to $2.695 per million British thermal units.

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