Light, sweet crude oil prices for November delivery declined to settle back under $45/bbl on the New York market Oct. 1 while analysts and traders appeared focused on forecasting how far US oil production might fall, and how the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will react.
“At the end of the day, it’s really the balance, the total global balance,” that is important, Darwei Kung, portfolio manager of Deutsche Enchanced Commodity Strategy Fund, told the Wall Street Journal. “The large OPEC producers will still be more focused on protecting the market share than oil-price protection.”
The US Energy Information Administration estimates US production fell 500,000 b/d during April through August. Separately, the International Energy Agency forecast in September that non-OPEC production would fall 500,000 b/d in 2016.
Meanwhile, OPEC produced 31.5 million b/d of crude oil in August, beating its quota of 30 million b/d.
Energy prices
The November crude oil contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropped 35¢ to $44.74/bbl on Oct. 1 while the December crude oil contract was down 34¢ to $45.22/bbl.
The natural gas contract for November dropped 9¢ to a rounded $2.43/MMbtu. The Henry Hub, La., gas price fell 10¢ to $2.37/MMbtu.
Heating oil for November delivery declined a rounded 1.8¢ to a rounded $1.52/gal. The price for reformulated gasoline stock for oxygenates blending for November was up a fraction of a penny to a rounded $1.37/gal.
The November ICE contract for Brent crude dropped 68¢ to $47.69/bbl, and the December contract declined 67¢ to settle at $48.38/bbl. ICE gas oil for October settled at $465.75/tonne, up $1.75.
The average price for the OPEC basket of 12 benchmark crudes was $44.66/bbl on Oct. 1, up $1.08 from the previous day.
Contact Paula Dittrick at [email protected].
*Paula Dittrick is editor of OGJ’s Unconventional Oil & Gas Report.
