Light, sweet crude oil futures gained slightly on Nov. 21 on the New York market in advance of the US Thanksgiving holiday and a Nov. 30 meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
“The market’s focus on the OPEC meeting has been temporarily disrupted, with prices supported by the continued outage of a pipeline from Canada to the US,” Ole Hansen, SaxoBank head of commodity strategy, said of the Keystone pipeline.
Keystone, which carries 590,000 b/d of crude from Alberta's oil sands to US markets, was shut last week after a 5,000-bbl spill in South Dakota.
“That combined with the big draw report from the (American Petroleum Institute) data has resulted in WTI being the outperformer for a change,” he said of West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices.
Oil prices continued gaining in early trading on Nov. 22 with light, sweet crude hitting $58/bbl for the first time since July 2015.
Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute said it estimated US crude supplies fell by 6.4 million bbl for the week ended Nov. 17. The US Energy Information Administration was scheduled to release its own estimate on Nov. 22.
The EIA inventory is the more closely watched of the two reports.
Most US futures markets will be closed Nov. 23 in observance of Thanksgiving.
Most analysts expect OPEC and other major producers to agree to extend production-cut targets, now scheduled to expire in March 2018. The targets are intended to help reduce world oil supplies, which peaked in October 2016.
Energy prices
The January 2018 light, sweet crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange climbed 41¢ on Nov. 21 to $56.83/bbl. The February 2018 contract rose 39¢ to $56.92/bbl.
The NYMEX natural gas price for December decreased 3¢ to a rounded $3.02/MMbtu. The Henry Hub cash gas price held steady at $3.05/MMbtu.
Heating oil for December gained less than 1¢ to a rounded $1.94/gal. The NYMEX reformulated gasoline blendstock for December rose nearly 3¢ to $1.77/gal.
The Brent crude contract for January 2018 on London’s ICE increased 35¢ to $62.57/bbl. The February 2018 contract was up 28¢ to $62.32/bbl.
The gas oil contract for December was up $2.50 to $558.50/tonne.
OPEC’s basket of crudes $60.49/bbl on Nov. 21, up 16¢.
Contact Paula Dittrick at [email protected].
