Oil prices fall against data on oil reserves in U.S.

By Azernews

By Sara Israfilbayova

World oil prices continue to show a negative trend on October 4 on the data of the American Petroleum Institute (API) on the growth of gasoline reserves in the U.S.

Brent crude futures are down 0.55 percent at $55.69 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures are down 0.71 percent at $50.06 per barrel, RIA Novosti reported.

API reported that gasoline stocks in the U.S. for the week ended on September 29 rose by 4.19 million barrels, while experts were expecting an increase of 1.088 million barrels.

Oil reserves in the country, on the contrary, decreased by 4.079 million barrels, analysts had expected a decrease by 756,000 barrels.

Now, market participants expect the publication of data from the U.S. Energy Department on the reserves of "black gold" in the country.

The analysts forecast that commercial oil reserves in the U.S. (excluding the strategic reserve) for the week ended on September 29 decreased by 467,000 barrels, or by 0.1 percent to 475.755 million barrels.

OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached an agreement in December 2016 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices. OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from January 1.

Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from January 1, 2017.

OPEC+ decided to extend its production cuts till March 2018 in Vienna on May 25.

Earlier, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak stressed that Russia has invited Turkmenistan to join the OPEC oil output cut deal.

“If the country responds to this proposal, in the medium term, oil prices may receive additional support, but so far nothing is known about Turkmenistan's response,” said Vadim Iosub, senior analyst of Alpari.

Further, Novak noted that the OPEC and non-OPEC countries agreed to monitor not only oil production, but also its exports.

Novak specified that within the framework of the energy week, which will be held on October 3-7 in Moscow, mechanisms for monitoring oil exports will be studied and OPEC+ energy ministers will discuss proposals for the future of the oil deal.

Later, the OPEC + committee for monitoring the implementation of agreements confirmed that export data will be monitored only as support for mining data.

The next meeting of the Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is scheduled for the day prior to the full ministerial meeting on November 30 in Vienna.