Oil Prices Continue Slide as Brent, WTI diverge

Investing.com – Oil prices continued to dip slightly in morning trade in Asia Friday, after a reported rise in inventories in the U.S. and while investors worked to understand the implications of a divergence in the price of London-traded Brent crude and U.S.-traded WTI, the two major oil-price benchmarks.

for July delivery were trading down 0.15% at $66.94 a barrel at 9:50PM ET (01:50 GMT).

futures for August delivery, traded in London, were down 0.26% at $77.53 per barrel.

A rise of 1 million barrels in inventories in the week to May 25 to 434.9 million barrels reported by the American Petroleum Institute on Wednesday surprised traders and sent prices down.

U.S. crude production has been rising relentlessly, increasing by more than a quarter in the last two years, to 10.73 million bpd, inching ever closer to top producer Russia’s output of around 11 million bpd.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other non-OPEC members including Russia may start to increase their supply as well. Saudi Arabia and Russia have discussed raising oil production in the second half of the year by some 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to make up for potential supply shortfalls from Venezuela and Iran. The former is going through an economic crisis and the later has been hit by sanctions from the U.S.

U.S. sanctions against Iran, which produces 4% of global oil supplies are expected to cause shortages later this year. Production in Venezuela has also plunged to its lowest level in decades.

OPEC and some non-OPEC producers will meet on June 22 to review their commitment to curb output by about 1.8 million barrels per day until the end of this year. Any signs that the group may be end the agreement early would would weigh on prices.

Meanwhile, for September delivery were up 0.53% at 474.30 yuan ($74.02) per barrel on Thursday at 10:00PM ET (02:00 GMT).

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