“The amount of oil coming out of Libya is fairly limited so it won’t have a material impact on crude prices today”, Singapore-based OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley told AFP. Algeria’s energy minister said on Monday any OPEC move to freeze output would help balance the market for at least six months.
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The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, said late Tuesday that its data for the week showed a 7.5 million-barrel decrease in crude supplies, a 2.5 million-barrel decrease in gasoline stocks and a 1.4 million-barrel increase in distillate inventories, according to a market participant.
Supplies of the fuel from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast have been disrupted since a leak was discovered on the 1.3 million barrel per day line on September 9.
Oil has fluctuated since August’s rally on speculation the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russian Federation will agree on ways to stabilize the market at the meeting.
Oil prices also rose after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major oil producers were close to reaching a deal on price stability.
USA gasoline futures (RBc1) settled up 2.5 percent at $1.3990 per gallon after data showed stocks of the motor fuel fell 3.2 million barrels nationwide, compared with analysts’ expectations for a 567,000-barrel drop. Total volume traded was in line with the 100-day average.
Brent futures LCOc1 closed down 7 cents at $45.88 per barrel.
The North Sea benchmark Brent was trading at $46.63 per barrel and US WTI was standing at $43.44 on Wednesday.
Japan’s customs-cleared crude oil imports rose 0.5 percent in August from the same month a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday.
Official storage data is due to be published by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) later on Wednesday, and traders said they were also eagerly anticipating a meeting by the US Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) which might influence US interest rates. The International Energy Forum’s conference there has received a lot of attention as it brings together key decision makers from both Opec and non-Opec producers.
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“Global production is at 94 million barrels per day, of which we need to go down 9 million barrels per day to sustain the level of consumption”, Del Pino said in an interview with state oil company PDVSA’s internal TV station.
