Oil down 2 percent after Trump urges OPEC not to cut supply



[ad_1]


News and research before you hear CNBC and others. Claim your 2-week free trial StreetInsider Premium here.


By Christopher Johnson

LONDON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump put the pressure on the market.

Brent dropped $ 1.97 a barrel, or 2.8 percent, to a low of $ 68.15 before recovering to around $ 68.72, down $ 1.40, by 1140 GMT. U.S. light crude was $ 1.30 lower at $ 58.63.

Both rates were higher than 20 percent since the beginning of the year.

"The market is now over," said Norbert Ruecker, Head of Macro and Commodity Research at Swiss Bank Julius Baer.

"Hedge funds and other speculative (investors) have swiftly changed from the long to the short side."

Top crude exporter Saudi Arabia has watched over the world, fearing a repeat of a glut that brought a price crash in 2014.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Monday the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to a barrel per day (bpd) from October levels to prevent oversupply.

But Trump has made it clear he wants oil prices to fall.

"Hopefully, Saudi Arabia and OPEC will not be cutting oil production. the president said in a Twitter post on Monday.

That led to a sharp price drop on Monday and the sell-off continued into Tuesday.

"This tweet certainly did not help prices," ING commodities strategist Warren Patterson said.

The dollar on the oil, hovering near 16-month highs <.dxy>, making crude more expensive for importers using other currencies.

Extraction from shale fields has propelled U.S. oil production to record highs this year with crude output now at 11.6 million bpd, helping make the United States self-sufficient in energy.

Merrill Lynch says U.S. crude production will break through 12 million bpd in 2019, supporting oil exports to the rest of the world.

Oil production is not just rising in the United States. Kazakhstan said on Tuesday its oil output rose 4.8 percent to 74.5 million tonnes in the first 10 months of 2018, equivalent to 1.82 million bpd.

Dutch bank ING bankruptcy and the threat of economic slowdown meant "cuts over 2019 are unavoidable".

"The market will be sizeable surplus at least over the first half of 2019," said ING.

(Reporting by Christopher Johnson in LONDON and Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE; Editing by Dale Hudson)

[ad_2]
Source link