Oil rose on Tuesday, after Libya said loadings of crude at a key port had been suspended, offsetting an earlier dent to the price caused by evidence of the inexorable growth in US oil output.
All loadings at the Libyan port of Zawiya, which exports crude from the 308,000-barrel per day El Sharara field, have stopped due to a strike, a Libyan website said, CNBC reported.
Brent crude futures were last up 11 cents on the day at $65.06 a barrel, up from an earlier low of $64.67, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 17 cents at $61.53 a barrel.
Both crude benchmarks dropped by around 1% on Monday after the US Energy Information Administration said output from the shale basin would hit a record high in April.
“Libyan oil loadings have been suspended, that’s why the market is rallying at the moment,” PVM Oil Associates analyst, Tamas Varga, said.
“The EIA confirmed, or possibly made worse, what we already knew about US shale output, which is relentlessly marching higher.”
US crude production from major shale formations is expected to rise by 131,000 bpd in April from the previous month to a record 6.95 million bpd, the US Energy Information Administration said in a monthly report on Monday.
“Oil prices moved lower ... after the Energy Information Administration published a report that crude production from seven major US shale plays is expected to see a climb,” said Stephen Innes, the head of trading for Asia/Pacific at futures brokerage OANDA, in Singapore.
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