Crude prices inched up on Thursday on a report suggesting that Saudi Arabia will propose a deal to balance oil markets, in the first sign the top OPEC producer is willing to compromise after a rout that has more than halved oil prices since June 2014.<\/p>\n
U.S. crude was trading 29 cents higher at $40.23 per barrel at 0517 GMT, while internationally traded Brent was up 48 cents at $42.97. <\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia, which has so far resisted any intervention, will propose a cut of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in OPEC output, Energy Intelligence reported, citing a senior OPEC delegate.<\/p>\n
“The market will want to hear from other parties and to have greater assurance that it looked a possibility,” said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at Sydney’s CMC Markets.<\/p>\n
“Not only do (the other producers) have to agree to do it, they also have to stick by the agreement.” <\/p>\n
OPEC’s top producer, Saudi Arabia, wants non-OPEC counties such as Russia, Mexico, Oman and Kazakhstan to participate in the deal.<\/p>\n
But it will be challenging to get all parties to agree, given diverging views on which producers should cut or limit production. <\/p>\n
“Saudi to propose 1 million bpd cuts … if … Iran, Iraq and OPEC join cuts. In other words won’t happen. Whoever does cut will lose market share,” Asenna Wealth Solutions’ senior trader Assad Tannous wrote in a tweet following the news.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia does not expect a formal deal to be reached this week, but would like the agreement to be implemented next year, Energy Intelligence reported.<\/p>\n
OPEC’s historic decision last year to maintain high output to defend market share from other producers such as Russia and U.S. shale drillers, sent oil prices into a spiral.<\/p>\n
OPEC is set to meet in Vienna on Friday to discuss its policy at a time when a global glut shows no signs of abating.<\/p>\n
U.S. crude inventories rose for a 10th straight week, climbing 1.2 million barrels, contrasting analysts’ expectations of a fall, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Additionally, oil product supplies are also building as warmer-than-usual weather in the U.S. northeast, a major market for heating oil, limits demand. Distillate stockpiles climbed by 3.1 million barrels last week, the EIA said, far exceeding expectations of a gain of 326,000 barrels. <\/p>\n
Oil production already exceeds demand by 0.5-2 million barrels per day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Crude prices inched up on Thursday on a report suggesting that Saudi Arabia will propose a deal to balance oil markets, in the first sign the top OPEC producer is willing to compromise after a rout that has more than halved oil prices since June 2014. U.S. crude was trading 29 cents higher at $40.23 per barrel at 0517 GMT, while internationally traded Brent was up 48 cents at $42.97. Saudi Arabia, which has so far resisted any intervention, will propose a cut of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in OPEC output, Energy Intelligence reported, citing a senior OPEC […]<\/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-44672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44672","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=44672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}