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."
Semiconductor business between Taiwan and the US is a “win-win” model for both sides given the high level of complementarity, the government said yesterday responding to tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp. Trump said on Monday he plans to impose tariffs on imported chips, pharmaceuticals and steel in an effort to get the producers to make them in the US. “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries
SMALL AND EFFICIENT: The Chinese AI app’s initial success has spurred worries in the US that its tech giants’ massive AI spending needs re-evaluation, a market strategist said Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek’s (深度求索) eponymous AI assistant rocketed to the top of Apple Inc’s iPhone download charts, stirring doubts in Silicon Valley about the strength of the US’ technological dominance. The app’s underlying AI model is widely seen as competitive with OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc’s latest. Its claim that it cost much less to train and develop triggered share moves across Asia’s supply chain. Chinese tech firms linked to DeepSeek, such as Iflytek Co (科大訊飛), surged yesterday, while chipmaking tool makers like Advantest Corp slumped on the potential threat to demand for Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators. US stock
The US Federal Reserve is expected to announce a pause in rate cuts on Wednesday, as policymakers look to continue tackling inflation under close and vocal scrutiny from US President Donald Trump. The Fed cut its key lending rate by a full percentage point in the final four months of last year and indicated it would move more cautiously going forward amid an uptick in inflation away from its long-term target of 2 percent. “I think they will do nothing, and I think they should do nothing,” Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis former president Jim Bullard said. “I think the
Cryptocurrencies gave a lukewarm reception to US President Donald Trump’s first policy moves on digital assets, notching small gains after he commissioned a report on regulation and a crypto reserve. Bitcoin has been broadly steady since Trump took office on Monday and was trading at about US$105,000 yesterday as some of the euphoria around a hoped-for revolution in cryptocurrency regulation ebbed. Smaller cryptocurrency ether has likewise had a fairly steady week, although was up 5 percent in the Asia day to US$3,420. Bitcoin had been one of the most spectacular “Trump trades” in financial markets, gaining 50 percent to break above US$100,000 and
RSS