US oil finishes higher with Saudis willing to cut exports to avoid oversupply

Oil futures were mixed on Thursday as US benchmark crude ended up following the OPEC Governor's announcement that crude exports are expected to fall next month in order to avoid an oversupply.

However, crude prices fell slightly following the end of a strike by oil workers in Norway that began more than a week ago.

August West Texas Intermediate Gross

CLQ8, + 0.73%

on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 70 cents, or 1%, to $ 69.46 per barrel after hitting a minimum $ 67.80. Prices often see volatile transactions before the expiration of a contract. The August contract expires at the end of Friday's session.

World benchmark September Brent crude

LCOU8, + 0.29%

however, fell by 32 cents, or 0.4%, to $ 72.58 per barrel of ICE Futures Europe after breaking the 73 , $ 79

The Norwegian Shipowners' Association announced the end of a strike by oil workers in Norway that began on July 10th.

WTI oil, meanwhile, kept its gains. Adeeb Al-Aama, governor of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries of Saudi Arabia, said in a statement Thursday that the kingdom's crude exports are expected to drop by around 100,000 barrels a day, August compared to the previous month. He also said that concerns over oversupply are "baseless" and that the Saudis "do not try to push oil" into the market beyond the needs of customers. "It seems that Saudi Arabia will not pump anymore and that has the price move higher," said Greg Michalowski, an analyst at ForexLive.

Wednesday oil futures rocked data that showed US crude oil reserves climbed 5.8 million barrels last week and domestic production hit a new record, supporting lower oil prices. larger than expected gasoline stocks. The rise in inventories combined with an increase in production from Saudi Arabia and other major producers, in accordance with an agreement reached in June, continued to limit the rise in oil prices. OPEC producers and non-OPEC countries cut their oil production by 21% more than in June, up from 47% in May, according to a press release from the Committee. ministerial joint surveillance report released Wednesday.

efforts to increase production by about 1 million barrels a day, partly to offset the expected production loss from Iran following the US decision to pull out of a nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions.

Analysts at JBC Energy in Vienna There are also questions about the amount of crude that China will absorb during the second half of the year beyond the needs of refineries, and therefore how much of 39 Additional Chinese purchases of Iranian crude could offset any loss of exports to other countries.

"China has absorbed more than one-third of all Iranian crude oil exports to Asia last year, but for the country to absorb the potentially equilibrium Excluded from other countries, it would take up to 1 million [barrels a day] of crude from other sources to be removed from the Chinese import slate.Although it is certainly not impossible it would be a major undertaking, "they wrote.

In other energy exchanges, the essence of August

RBQ8, + 0.50%

finished little changed at $ 2.044 a gallon, while August heating oil

HOQ8, + 0.28%

also finished roughly flat at $ 2,090 per gallon.

Natural gas prices climbed after the US Energy Information Administration announced Thursday that domestic natural gas reserves had risen 46 billion cubic feet for the week ended July 13th. analysts' forecasts surveyed by S & P Global Platts.

August natural gas

NGQ18, + 0.07%

ended at $ 2,769 per million British thermal units, up 4.8 cents, or 1.8%.