Forex Marketz Daily Forex News – Fully Markets Update
Crude oil prices inched higher during this morning’s Asian trade hours. They are near highs reached during the previous day. Those highs were last seen in late 2014. Price action was supported by declining U.S. crude inventories. Also, top exporter Saudi Arabia, is expected to keep withholding supply to support the market.
As of 12:30 am GMT, the international benchmark, Brent crude futures were at $73.79 per barrel. This is up 31 cents, or 0.4 percent, from their previous settlement.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 29 cents, or 0.4 percent. They were last trading at $68.76 a barrel.
Brent on Wednesday touched its highest price level since November, 2014 at $73.93 per barrel. WTI hit its highest price level since December 2014 at $68.91 a barrel.
Crude Oil Traders react to Saudi comments on Production
Saudi Arabia would be happy to see crude rise to $80 or even $100 a barrel. This was taken as a sign that Riyadh will seek no changes to an OPEC supply reduction scheme that started in 2017 to boost prices.
Led by Saudi Arabia, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other countries, that including Russia started to withhold output in 2017. This is an effort to rein in oversupply that had weighed on prices since 2014.
Since the start of the scheme, crude inventories have gradually reduced from record highs towards long-term average levels.
Also supporting oil prices, the United States is expected to reintroduce sanctions against OPEC-member Iran. This will result in further supply reductions from producers in the Middle East.
In the United States, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said that commercial stocks fell by 1.1 million barrels for the week that ended April 13. They fell to 427.57 million barrels. This is close to the five year average level at 420 million barrels.
