Crude oil prices have witnessed downturn running from Tuesday 13 to early hours of today. West Texas Intermediate, WTI, at the time of this report is selling at $60.65 pb, a drop from $61.70 pb it sold yesterday 14th of May. WTI had sold at 63.84 on Tuesday 13th though there were indications that the uptick lacks buffers against major underlying factors.
Brent is selling at $63.85 pb, a sharp fall from $66.09 pb it sold yesterday. Oil prices eased on Wednesday after government data showed U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose unexpectedly last week, Reuter said. EIA data showed crude stockpiles rose by 3.5 million barrels to 441.8 million barrels last week.
Analysts had become uneased by the continued increase in supply by OPEC+ such as Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia after initial unsuccessful effort to raise prices through production cut. OPEC+ said last month it would boost its combined supply by 411,000 bpd this month. This was expected to counter any intermittent upticks such as the US – Chaina trade tariff talks that raised prices temporally.
This week, OPEC monthly Oil Report showed that Saudi Arabia has consistently increased production for 3 consecutive months from February. Production increased from 8.953 mbd in February to 8.962 mpd in March and to 9.010 mbd in April.
Well, good news for Nigeria, the report said that Nigeria oil production rose by 85 thousand barrel 1.486 mpd in April from the 1.401 mbd produced in March. This figure represents 99 percent of the 1.5 million bpd quota set for Nigeria by OPEC
Production had dropped from 1.465 mbd in February to 1.401 mbd in March. It is expected that factors responsible to the increased in production will be strengthened to avoid production decline for the coming months.
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