Worries about smart phone and chip demand hit stocks hard today–and a rise in commodity prices, while good for commodity producers raised fears of higher inflation. As of 3 p.m. New York time, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index was off 0.79% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 0.43%.
West Texas Intermediate climbed 3.16% today to $68.80. Futures for May delivery moved over $68 a barrel for the first time in three years. Yesterday the American Petroleum Institute reported a 1.05 million barrel draw down in U.S. inventories. Today the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a drop in crude inventories of 1.1 million barrels. Energy analysts had projected an increase in inventories for the week ended April 13. But it’s not just near-term supply and demand figures that are pushing oil priced higher.
The goal was to cut production enough to reduce global oil inventories to their five-year average. The hope of the coalition of OPEC and Russia that reduction in production would get oil prices up to $60 a barrel. Now with that inventory reduction just about in place and with oil at $60 a barrel, the Saudis are pushing for further production cuts and a target price of $70 a barrel.
Norges Bank Investment Management, the entity that runs Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, has recommended that the fund, which invests the country’s take from oil and gas revenue from production from its own reserves, sell off its shares in oil and gas stocks. The fund owns $35 billion in oil and gas shares. Should you follow suit?
The meeting of OPEC and its allies in Vienna today, September 22, ended without an extension of production cuts (scheduled to expire in March 2018) and without an agreement to make those cuts in output deeper. The after-meeting talk was full of declarations of progress toward reducing the glut in global oil inventories. And there was nary a sign of worry that higher oil prices could bring an increased supply from U.S. oil shale producers back into the market
Want to play along as the oil market tries to guess what OPEC will do at its Friday meeting? West Texas Intermediate moved down, slightly, to $49.56 a barrel, a 0.7% retreat, as of 3 p.m. New York time. International benchmark Brent moved 0.52% lower to $55.19 a barrel. The question is What’s priced into this market?
How soon will U.S. oil production from wells in oil shale geologies peak? It’s the big question for U.S. oil producers and for a global oil market swimming in excess inventory. As long as U.S. oil production continues to increase all of OPEC’s production cuts, intended to reduce that excess supply, aren’t going to get the job done. Since October 2016, U.S. crude oil production increased by more than one million barrels per day.
