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Oil prices fell on Friday after the United States announced that its crude output reached a record 12 million barrels a day, undermining the efforts of the OPEC-dominated producer club. Orient, aimed at restricting supply and tightening global markets.
Futures contracts on Brent International amounted to $ 66.87 per barrel at 0326 GMT, down 20 cents (0.3%) from their last close.
The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures price was $ 56.84 per barrel, down 12 cents (0.2%) from their latest settlement.
Crude oil production in the United States reached 12 million barrels a day for the first time last week, a weekly report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Thursday.
This means that US crude oil production has increased by almost 2.5 million bpd since the beginning of 2018 and by no less than 5 million bpd since 2013. America is the only country to reach 12 million bpd of production.
As production increases, US oil stocks also increase.
Commercial crude oil inventories in the United States rose 3.7 million barrels to 454.5 million barrels during the week ended Feb. 15, EIA reported.
Analysts say US production will rise further and oil companies will export more oil to sell their surplus stocks.
"We expect total US crude oil production to reach 13 million bpd by the end of the year, with an annual average of 12.5 million bpd in 2019," said US bank Citi following the publication of the EIA report.
According to the bank, "we could witness a few weeks with 4.6 million bpd of gross exports of crude by the end of the year, which adds to the new record this week "of 3.6 million bpd.
Friday 's declines have at least temporarily halted the recovery that pushed crude oil prices to their highest level for 2019 up to now, due to supply cuts led by the government. Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
OPEC and some unaffiliated producers, such as Russia, agreed late last year to reduce production by 1.2 million bpd to prevent a significant increase in supply.
US sanctions against oil exporters, Iran and Venezuela, are another recent price factor.
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