Forex Marketz Daily Forex News – Fully Markets Update
The price of crude oil contracts continued to fall overnight into Asian hours after a weak attempt to buy the black gold petered out near the key $50 per barrel level, for the US WTI crude oil contract. Data, from the previous day showed a record level of demand for gasoline out of the United States.
The global benchmark Brent crude closed down 35 cents a barrel at $52.01 a barrel. WTI light sweet crude was 56 cents lower at $49.03. US WTI crude traded at a session high at $49.96 a barrel. The US light crude has remained below $50 a barrel as it is being capped by robust domestic supplies.
In the US, the market needs to see more signs of improvement with its inventory in order to really drive the price higher. As far as data is concerned, there is strong demand in the United States which has been supporting the price of the black gold. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported record gasoline demand of 9.84 million barrels per day for last week. The report, which was released Wednesday, also showed a fall in commercial crude inventories of 1.5 million barrels.
OPEC Supply Issues continue to Cap Oil Price Gains
News out of OPEC is showing that oil exports rose to a record high in July. This increase was driven by soaring exports from the group’s African members.
OPEC and other crude producers, which includes Russia have promised to restrict output by 1.8 million barrels per day until the end of March 2018. This is a bid to support prices while reducing global inventories.
However, OPEC’s production output hit a 2017 high of 33 million barrels per day for the month of July. This was up 90,000 barrels from the June. This increase in output is being led by a recovery in output from Libya. Libya is one of the cartel countries exempt from the deal.
