Oil prices ended only moderately lower after falling sharply on Friday, as word of disappointing recovery in Gulf of Mexico oil and gas output prompted traders to cover positions.
The November crude futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange ended US$0.45 lower at US$62.63 a barrel, well off the intraday low of US$61.20 a barrel.
November Brent futures on London's International Petroleum Exchange closed with a loss of US$0.79 at US$59.35 a barrel.
Among petroleum products, gasoline made the most impressive recovery.
Gasoline for November delivery on the Nymex closed US$0.93 lower at US$1.7486 a gallon (3.78 liters), a sharp rebound from an intraday low of US$1.65 a gallon. November heating oil finished US$0.0469 cents lower at US$1.95 a gallon after hitting an intraday low of US$1.9025 a gallon.
Trading was light, with volumes truncated by the absence of many traders out, extending the weekend after Thursday's observance of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
The late bounce in prices came after the federal Minerals Management Service reported in a daily update a slight uptick in Gulf of Mexico oil production, putting the amount of shut-in output at about 1 million barrels a day, or 67.3 percent of total daily output, down slightly form 68.8 percent seen on Thursday.
There was virtually no improvement in natural gas output, with some 5.65 billion cubic feet (160 million cubic meters) a day of output off line, or 56.5 percent of the total, the MMS said in a daily update.
The slow pace of recovery contrasted sharply with the rapid progress Gulf Coast refiners have made in restarting hurricane-shuttered units.
"The report shows that we still have a long way to go to get back to normal," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. "People are disappointed that things are not coming back online as quickly as they expected."
Reports of rising refinery output and weak demand continued to weigh on the market, however.
The federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported on Thursday that US refinery utilization jumped by 5.1 percentage points last week to about 75 percent of operable capacity after plunging nearly 17 percent in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita.
At the same time, gasoline demand was down 57,000 barrels a day on the week at 8.783 million barrels a day, a 1.5 percent decline on the year, the EIA said. In the four weeks ended Oct. 7, gasoline demand averaged 8.882 million barrels a day, down 2.4 percent on the year, according to the report.
Mike Fitzpatrick, an analyst at brokerage Fimat USA in New York, said weak demand has been at the forefront of the market for several weeks now.
"There is nothing new there," he told Dow Jones Newswires. "People didn't just wake up to it last night. They've been selling it for a while."
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
In a red box factory that stands out among the drab hills of the West Bank, Chat Cola’s employees race to quench Palestinians’ thirst for local products since the Gaza war erupted last year. With packaging reminiscent of Coca-Cola’s iconic red and white aluminum cans, Chat Cola has tapped into Palestinians’ desire to shun brands perceived as too supportive of Israel. “The demand for [Chat Cola] increased since the war began because of the boycott,” owner Fahed Arar said at the factory in the occupied West Bank town of Salfit. Julien, a restaurateur in the city of Ramallah further south,
RSS