Crude oil prices rose on Tuesday as the dollar eased slightly, but concerns about oversupply remained front of mind with OPEC expected to keep its output target unchanged at a policy meeting on Friday. <\/p>\n
US crude was trading up 34 cents at $41.99 a barrel at 0726 GMT, but was still down more than 10% since the start of November.<\/p>\n
Internationally traded Brent was also up 34 cents at $44.95 a barrel.<\/p>\n
A weakening of the dollar – which dipped against a basket of currencies on Tuesday – makes greenback-denominated contracts such as oil futures cheaper for those holding other currencies.<\/p>\n
“If we saw selling of the dollar and buying of the euro, it could support oil prices and give us a bit of a rally,” said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at Sydney’s CMC Markets. “It’s really a bit of an ECB wild card at the moment.”<\/p>\n
The European Central Bank (ECB) is widely expected to cut interest rates on euro deposits and extend its quantitative easing program at a key meeting on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Still, traders and analysts remained bearish about oil.<\/p>\n
In physical markets, Dubai crude fell to the lowest since December 2008, averaging $41.691 per barrel for November, according to price-reporting agency Platts.<\/p>\n
OPEC’s biggest producer Saudi Arabia, which heavily influences the group’s policy, is widely expected to keep output steady despite declining prices.<\/p>\n
OPEC made a historic decision last year to keep pumping oil to protect its market share against U.S. shale drillers and other producers, which resulted in a glut that sent oil prices spiralling.<\/p>\n
“There is a real risk that we could see lower prices,” said CMC’s Spooner. “The prospects for demand-growth are not large enough to go into the supply overhang.”<\/p>\n
China’s economy showed renewed signs of weakness, with its manufacturing falling to a three-year low, according to an official survey released on Tuesday. Japan’s manufacturing accelerated, but was at low levels.<\/p>\n
WTI crude could fall through $40 per barrel in coming weeks if crude oil stocks do not decline in line with seasonal patterns, ANZ said.<\/p>\n
Hedge funds’ bullish wagers on U.S. crude fell to a more than five-year low amid concerns that U.S. oil output is not falling fast enough to offset the global glut.<\/p>\n
U.S. government data showed no meaningful decline in shale output despite falling rig counts, with supply exceeding demand by 0.7-2.5 million barrels per day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Crude oil prices rose on Tuesday as the dollar eased slightly, but concerns about oversupply remained front of mind with OPEC expected to keep its output target unchanged at a policy meeting on Friday. US crude was trading up 34 cents at $41.99 a barrel at 0726 GMT, but was still down more than 10% since the start of November. Internationally traded Brent was also up 34 cents at $44.95 a barrel. A weakening of the dollar – which dipped against a basket of currencies on Tuesday – makes greenback-denominated contracts such as oil futures cheaper for those holding other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}