Oil still expects signals from OPEC
The price of crude oil (February Brent futures) at 1435 GMT on Thursday, December 3, was down 0.6% to $47.98 a barrel brent. The “black gold” market continues to stabilize at around $48 per barrel, waiting for OPEC’s decisions on the fate of production cuts from early 2021.
media write that OPEC is leaning towards maintaining oil production quotas from the beginning of next year, but is expected to gradually increase production, possibly by a step of 500,000 barrels per day. This speed of easing restrictive quotas will be discussed by allies at today’s meeting.
US commercial oil reserves (excluding strategic reserve) fell by 700,000 barrels (0.1%) within the last week. 488 million barrels, the country’s energy ministry estimates. Experts had predicted a decrease of 2.36 million barrels.
U.S. gasoline inventories rose 3.5 million barrels (1.5%) last week to 233.6 million barrels, with an expected increase of 2.4 million barrels. Distillate stocks rose 3.2 million barrels (2.3%) to 145.9 million barrels, with an expected decrease of 200,000 barrels. The U.S. refining rate was 78.2 percent, up from 78.7 percent a week earlier.
The oil reserve at Cushing’s largest terminal fell by 300,000 barrels to 59.6 million barrels during the week. U.S. strategic oil reserves were unchanged this week, remaining at 638.2 million barrels, the energy ministry estimates. U.S. crude oil production rose by 100,000 barrels last week to an average of 11.1 million barrels per day, the ministry estimates. The average over the past four weeks was 10.875 million barrels per day.
Fuel shortages occurred at a number of petrol stations in the southwestern Saudi province of Jizan due to a technical failure of one of the pumps of the Saudi Aramco oil distribution station. The report does not specify the cause of the pump failure. Last week, however, a fire broke out in a distribution station tank north of Jeddah due to shelling by Houthi rebels from Yemen. However, the Saudis ensured that no one was injured as a result of the incident, and fuel supplies to Saudi Aramco customers were not disrupted.
