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Oil futures tumbled sharply on Thursday, dropping more than 4% in two sessions. A fourth consecutive rise in US crude inventories has eased concerns over limited global supplies, with the United States imposing sanctions on Iranian oil next month.
Natural gas prices fell by nearly 4% after data from the Energy Information Administration released on Thursday showed a weekly rise that generally meets market expectations, but also the total supply of Stored fuel had reached its highest level since late 2017.
November futures on US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate Crude
CLX8, + 0.42%
fell $ 1.10, or 1.6%, to $ 68.65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, recording a two-session loss of more than 4%. It was also the lowest arrival for a contract at the beginning of the month since September 13th.
LCOZ8, + 0.47%
fell by 76 cents, or close to 1%, to $ 79.29 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe, the lowest since September 21.
Among the products marketed on the Nymex, November's essence
RBX8, + 0.30%
decreased by 1.4% to $ 1.891 per gallon while November oil
HOX8, + 0.48%
lost 0.7% to $ 2.295 a gallon.
Oil also fell sharply on Wednesday after EIA announced a 6.5-million-barrel increase in domestic crude inventories during the week ended Oct. 12, well above expectations and a fourth increase. weekly consecutive.
"The rise in inventories is a recent trend that shows that supply is not a problem," said Brian Youngberg, senior energy analyst at Edward Jones, MarketWatch.
A drop in crude exports led to an increase in net imports, boosting inventories despite a drop in production in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Michael.
"Concerns over US-Saudi relations have had no material impact," Youngberg said. "The idea that the impact of the sanctions imposed by Iran will simply be offset by a production elsewhere also causes the bulls to fall back a bit."
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Analysts at the Vienna-based consultancy firm JBC Energy said Iran's sanctions on global supply had already been largely accounted for in prices.
"The satellite vessel tracking services indicate that Turkey is the only regular European buyer of Iranian crude, which implies that EU refiners have already successfully overhauled some 500,000 [barrels a day] ", They wrote, adding that a significant reduction on the Urals NWE type crude compared to Brent indicated that there was no particular shortage of moderately acidic crude in Europe.
If Iran's crude oil exports stabilize at 900,000 barrels a day, it would appear that the upward impact of sanctions imposed by Iran has passed, potentially denying the market "a major pillar of support at a time when demand is rising. and the refining pillars are already flickering, "they said.
For its part, Eugen Weinberg, Commerzbank's Commerzbank Commodities Research Officer, said it seemed that the hope that the Iranian export deficit would be offset by a resumption of oil production in the so-called neutral area between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait "seemed to come to nothing."
The neutral zone is an area of 2,230 km2 located between the borders of the two countries, which has not been defined since the establishment of the border in 1922. S & P Global Platts announced earlier this week that discussions between the two countries on shared oil fields had broken down. , closing about 500,000 barrels per day of anticipated oil production.
"Efforts to achieve this have failed for the moment," said Weinberg in a note on Thursday. "The market is therefore likely to see supply tightening until the end of the year, so we do not think a Brent price below $ 80 is justified."
The market has already "experienced a reduction in Iranian exports, but increased production from the three largest producers, South America, Saudi Arabia and Russia."
Youngberg also pointed out that the market "has already seen Iranian exports decrease, but that the three largest producers, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia, have increased their production." While supply seems robust, "a more important question … is that of global demand maintain.It seems that this is the case, but the markets are watching it in the coming months."
On Thursday, the EIA announced that domestic natural gas supplies had increased by 81 billion cubic feet for the week ended October 12. According to estimates, it is estimated that 85 billion cubic feet will be built, according to Schneider Electric. Total stocks now stand at 3.037 billion cubic feet, the highest level since late December 2017, show EIA data.
November natural gas
NGX18, + 1.25%
lost 3.7% to finish at $ 3.198 per million British thermal units, reducing its gain since the beginning of the week to 1.2%.
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