The price of OPEC basket of thirteen crudes stood at $31.59 a barrel on Tuesday, compared with $30.13 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations.
The new OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Minas (Indonesia), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).
Meanwhile MarketWatch reports that oil prices fell on Wednesday, ending a recent rally after an industry group revealed a larger-than-expected increase in U.S. crude stockpiles. That keeps longer-term inventory issues top of mind for this market even as global production cut hopes had lifted prices in recent sessions.
The American Petroleum Institute reported late Tuesday that U.S. crude stocks grew by 9.9 million barrels last week. That was much higher than the 2.6 million-barrel expansion estimated by analysts in a Wall Street Journal survey ahead of the official data by the U.S. Energy Information Administration later on Wednesday.
“U.S. crude oil inventories increasing is almost becoming a norm,” said Daniel Ang, analyst at Phillip Futures.
Brent crude LCOK6, -0.43% the global oil benchmark, fell 1.1% to $36.40 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate futures CLJ6, -0.99% were trading down nearly 2% at $33.73 a barrel.
As of last week, total U.S. crude inventories stood at 507.6 million barrels, a weekly high. Historical monthly data shows inventories last surpassed 500 million barrels in 1930.
With API data almost three times higher than the expected, market participants should brace for volatility around the release of the official EIA data, said Michael Poulsen, oil analyst at Global Risk Management.
