Oil slightly higher on renewed output cut talks
By A/S Global Risk Management.


Michael Poulson, Senior Oil Risk Manager at Global Risk Management. Image credit: A/S Global Risk Management

Updated on 15 Nov 2018 08:48 GMT
This week, OPEC stated that the organisation's members should decrease output to bring down global inventories as oil prices have plummeted over the past month. The group's president seemed sure that the members will reach consensus about this strategy at the next OPEC meeting in the beginning of December. He did not mention any specific magnitude of these alleged cuts, but a possible benchmark is the amount of the previous cuts.

The market didn't seem to react heavily to this news, which could be due to such a statement not changing fundamentals from day to day. There is, however, a possibility of this statement flooring the oil price at the $65 level in the short term.

Today the EIA oil inventories are due. Consensus is of a build in crude oil stocks of around 3.2 mio. barrels. Data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) last night showed an 8.9m-barrel build.

As the U.S. refiners have been running on low steam for more than a month, the U.S. has imported less oil than average for the year. The data to look for is therefore the U.S. refinery utilisation rate in the short term and the outcome of the 6 December OPEC meeting in medium term.

Yesterday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its monthly oil market report. According to the IEA, oil supply continues to grow at a fast pace, leading to increases in global inventories for 4 months in a row and products are back into the five-year average.

Today sees a row of U.S. economic data along with Fed members and Chair speeches.


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