Oil Prices Drop Over Rising US Supplies

Oil prices fell on Wednesday, hit by rising supplies in the United States and expectations that producer group OPEC could relax voluntary output cuts.

Benchmark Brent crude oil slid 35 cents at $75.53 a barrel. US light crude stood 40 cents lower at $65.96, CNBC reported.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-OPEC producers, including Russia, started withholding output in 2017 to reduce a global supply overhang and prices have risen by around 60% over the last year.

But OPEC said on Tuesday the oil market outlook in the second half of this year was highly uncertain and warned of downside risks to demand.

OPEC will meet on June 22 in Vienna, Austria, to discuss future production policy.

“The prospect of easing supply curbs from OPEC-led producers continues to be reflected in oil’s overall depressed price,” said Lukman Otunuga, an analyst at futures brokerage FXTM.

Dutch bank ING, however, said some OPEC members would “struggle to push production back to October 2016 levels”.

In the United States, the American Petroleum Institute said on Tuesday crude oil inventories rose by 830,000 barrels in the week ending June 8 to 433.7 million.

Rising US stocks are in part a result of the surge in US crude oil production, which has jumped by almost a third in the last two years to a record 10.8 million barrels per day.

With output in Russia rising back above 11 million bpd in June and Saudi production climbing back above 10 million bpd, supplies from the top three producers are increasing.

“With rising production from US shale adding to oil’s woes and reviving oversupply concerns, further downside could be a possibility in the short to medium term,” Otunuga said.

Official US production and inventory data are due to be published on Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration.