Spot Cargo Markets - $55/bbl Brent

摘要

Oil prices rose in thin pre-Christmas trade on growing optimism that crude producers will abide by a deal to cut output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day from Jan. 1 next year. International benchmark Brent settled at $55.05 per barrel Thursday, up $1.03/bbl on the week while US price-pin WTI put on $2.05/bbl to close at $52.95/bbl. Promised Opec and non-Opec cuts have boosted oil prices to 17-month highs and set up 2016 to be the first year since 2012 in which Brent has risen. The market is now waiting to see how good compliance really is and how much other producers, in particular US shale producers, grow production in response to the higher prices. Non-quotabound Libya has already said it hopes to add 270,000 b/d to national production after it confirmed Dec. 20 that pipelines leading from the Sharara and El Feel fields had reopened. Oil futures dipped midweek after official US data showed a surprise build in crude inventories, mainly thanks to surging imports. Energy Information Administration (EIA) figures showed a surprise 2.3 million bbl build in US crude stocks in the week ending Dec. 16. But the aggregate masked the first draw in tanks at WTI’s Cushing, Oklahoma, pricing point for the first time in four weeks.