Oil down 3rd day; U.S. output at 3-year high, offsetting weekly draw
Investing.com — Saudi oil production cuts may no longer be the news; not even weak Chinese buying, perhaps. It’s U.S. production that’s demanding attention now, with crude output in the world’s largest economy projected to have reached a new three-year high last week.
Global oil markets remained under pressure for a third day in a row despite the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, citing a crude drawdown of almost 6 million barrels last week — virtually identical to what it reported as the prior week’s build.
The EIA’s reporting on crude stockpiles has turned volatile lately, with the agency citing a record draw of 17.049M barrels two weeks ago, as global stockpiles see shifts from a Saudi bid to cut an additional million barrels per day from their production while buying from top oil importer China slows.
A closer examination of the EIA’s weekly report showed last week’s crude draw possibly resulted from a spike in U.S. crude exports, which rose to 4.599M barrels from a prior 2.36M.
Notwithstanding the crude draw, market chatter was on U.S. production, which the EIA estimated last week at a new three-year high of 12.7M barrels per day.
In the previous week to Aug. 4, the EIA estimated crude production at 12.6M. Prior to these two weeks, the agency had not projected such a high number for output, following the record 13.1M barrels produced daily before the coronavirus outbreak in March 2020.
Crude stockpiles fell by 5.960M barrels during the week ended Aug. 11, after the build of 5.851M in the prior week to Aug. 4, the EIA said. Industry analysts tracked by Investing.com had forecast a decline of just 2.32M for last week.
On the gasoline inventory front, there was a draw of 0.261M after the prior week’s
Read more on investing.com
