Crude oil prices stabilized today as traders anticipate yet another 411,000-bpd boost in OPEC+ supply to be announced at the end of this week when the group meets, with downward pressure coming from the latest weekly U.S. inventory report.
The American Petroleum Institute estimated a build of 680,000 barrels for the last full week of June, breaking a five-week string of draws totaling over 22 million barrels. The unexpected build pressured oil prices despite the cumulative build from the previous month.
At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $67.13 per barrel, slightly up from opening, with West Texas Intermediate at $65.47 per barrel, also up modestly from opening in Asia.
“Today’s oil price moves are being pushed by the interplay of potentially rising OPEC+ supply, confusing U.S. inventory signals, uncertain geopolitical outlook, and macro-policy ambiguity,” Phillip Nova analyst Priyanka Sachdeva told Reuters. She added that with the war premium gone on the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, only the weaker U.S. dollar currently exerted upward pressure on oil prices.
ING commodity analysts, meanwhile, said they expected OPEC+ to continue with its supply ramp-up, bringing back all the barrels originally cut back in 2022 by the end of the third quarter of the year. Originally, the 2.2 million bpd in cuts were planned to be brought back by the end of 2026.
“These larger supply increases should leave the global oil market well supplied for the remainder of the year. It’s set to return to a large surplus in the fourth quarter of this year,” Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote, adding that “Expectations for a comfortable oil balance, along with a large amount of OPEC spare production capacity, appear to be comforting the market.”
The latest data about Saudi oil exports, from Kpler, showed these up by 450,000 barrels daily in June from a month earlier.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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