Oil recoups day-ago loss as Saudis talk up Sept cuts as expected
Investing.com — Down a day and up by as much the next: Oil’s yo-yo like behavior came after Saudi Arabia on Thursday announced as widely expected that it would extend its July-August production cut of one million barrels per day to next month as well.
As though stung — and maybe somewhat annoyed — that short sellers were making a comeback after a five-week rally cut short by Wednesday’s 2% slump, an official at the Saudi energy ministry was quoted saying the kingdom’s state news agency SPA that the cuts would only be extended but also deepened if necessary.
“This additional voluntary cut comes to reinforce the precautionary efforts made by OPEC+ countries with the aim of supporting the stability and balance of oil markets," the energy ministry official said in remarks carried by the SPA agency, Reuters reported.
With an hour to Thursday’s settlement, U.S. West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude was up $2.17, or 2.7%, at $81.66 per barrel. In Wednesday’s session, the U.S. crude benchmark lost 2.3%. Week to date, WTI was up more than 1%, after a near 16% gain through July.
London-based Brent crude was up $2, or 2.4%, at $85.20. For the week, the global oil benchmark gained 0.3%, after running up nearly 14% for July.
Wednesday’s 2% slump in oil marked the first meaningful decline on the market since the rally in oil began a month and a half ago. It came despite the Energy Information Administration reporting an epic drop of 17M barrels in U.S. crude stockpiles last week after the agency had cited for weeks paltry inventory changes despite the production cuts claimed by the Saudis.
More interesting than the EIA report was another story suggesting the Saudis might be playing a deception game with their production cuts by
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