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Fuel oil trend

Rotterdam: $ 3 lower
Singapore: $ 15 lower
US Gulf: $ 1 lower

Oil prices keep testing the $60 level

Saudi Arabia's oil minister stated the obvious yesterday; that OPEC could/would not be the only oil producer to cut output in order to curb the recent steep oil price drop. OPEC produces around 40% of the total oil output (slightly above 30 mio. barrels per day). Russia and the U.S are non-OPEC members producing around 10.4 and 11.1 mio. barrels per day respectively. It seems like a difficult knot to untie – with several oil producing countries stating that they will not cut production (e.g. Russia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia), unity about cutting output seems far away and the fight for market share goes on. Saudi Arabia's oil exports fell around 10% in October from a year ago – to 6.9 from 7.7 mio. barrels per day, the 6th month in a row with exports below 7 mio. bpd which is the level needed to balance its budgets.

Today is low on economic data market movers; yesterday showed improved German and UK data, increasing hopes for European economies escaping from recession. The U.S. Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index came out below expectations, as did the Philly Fed Employment data (7.2 versus 22.4 previous). Next week sees a row of U.S. data on Monday/Tuesday before large part of the world is entering into the holiday season from Wednesday.