UPSTREAMONINE.COM
REUTERS
Oil prices fell by more than 1% early on Friday, with US crude futures dipping below $45 per barrel as news of a rise in US production added to earlier reports that Opec output was also on the rise.
REUTERS
Oil prices fell by more than 1% early on Friday, with US crude futures dipping below $45 per barrel as news of a rise in US production added to earlier reports that Opec output was also on the rise.
Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were trading down 58 cents, or 1.2%, at $47.53 per barrel early on Friday.
US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $44.95 per barrel, down 57 cents, or 1.3%.
News of the production rise outweighed positive sentiment from falling crude and gasoline inventories in the US.
"Oil prices were initially stronger of the back of the better than expected drawdown in inventories... However, the exuberance was short-lived, as the market turned its attention to another increase in US production," ANZ bank said on Friday.
US crude inventories fell by 6.3 million barrels in the week to June 30, to 502.9 million barrels, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Gasoline stocks fell by 3.7 million barrels, to 237.3 million barrels.
The data suggested strong demand in the US, but this was offset by a 1% rise in weekly US oil production to 9.34 million barrels per day. Since mid-2016, that's an increase of more than 10%.
The rising US output comes as supplies from Opec rose for a second month in a row in June, according to Thomson Reuters Oil Research, despite its pledge to hold back production between January this year and March 2018.
Opec exported 25.92 million bpd in June, 450,000 bpd more than in May and 1.9 million bpd more than a year earlier.