LONDON: Oil prices steadied on Thursday after US data showed a big fall in crude stockpiles but also an increase in production, taking US crude output to its highest in more than two years.
Brent crude LCOc1 was unchanged at $50.27 a barrel by 0845 GMT. US light crude CLc1 was 5 cents lower at $46.73.
Both benchmarks fell more than 1 per cent on Wednesday.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed commercial US crude stocks C-STK-T-EIA have fallen by almost 13 per cent from their peaks in March to 466.5 million barrels. Stocks are now lower than in 2016. But US oil output is rising fast as shale producers take advantage of a recent increase in prices.
US production jumped by 79,000 barrels per day (bpd) to over 9.5 million bpd last week, its highest level since July 2015, and 12.75 per cent above the most recent low in mid-2016. C-OUT-T-EIA
“The EIA data suggest the US oil market is becoming more balanced, with crude inventories falling,” said Tamas Varga, senior market analyst at London brokerage PVM Oil Associates.
“But the big jump in production was the focus.”
Rising US output has been undermining efforts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC producers
including Russia to drain a global fuel glut. They have promised to restrict output by a total of 1.8 million bpd between January this year and March 2018. — Reuters
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