The price of crude oil futures settled at $77.86. That is up $1.45 or 1.9%. Helping the upside was
- Reports suggesting Saudi Arabia seeks deeper OPEC+ production cuts.
- Saudi Arabia favoring a reduction of up to 1 million barrels per day (BPD). However, other members, like the UAE, are hesitant to lower their quotas.
- Despite these discussions, the most likely outcome appears to be maintaining most of the current output restrictions.
Running counter to the trend was the weekly EIA data. The EIA announced an unexpected increase in crude inventories, which was contrary to the previous private data. Gasoline and Distillates also saw larger builds than anticipated.
- Crude all inventories increased by 1.609M versus -0.933M estimate
- Distillates rose 5.217M versus -0.394M estimate
- Gasoline saw a build of 1.764M vs 0.229M estimate
- Refining utilization increased to 2.8%, with crude production steady at 13.2 million BPD.
The OPEC meeting will take place online tomorrow. Usually, there is more certainty at this point. What the meeting already postponed from the weekend to tomorrow, there remains a lot maneuvering that is still going on.