The price of OPEC basket of fourteen crudes stood at $44.61 a barrel on Thursday, compared with $43.18 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), Rabi Light (Gabon), 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, Wall Street Journal reports that oil prices shot upward on Thursday, with their largest daily gain since April, after weekly data showed a sharp and surprising decline in U.S. stockpiles of crude oil and fuel.
Crude-oil prices have swung higher this week, rising 10.3% in the past four sessions. But they still have struggled to break out of the $40-to-$50 range in which they have been moving in recent weeks, amid uncertainty over whether the world’s major oil producers will take steps to curb output when they meet later this month.
While the unexpected drop in supplies drove Thursday’s rally, analysts said the decline may largely reflect bad weather that kept cargoes of oil and fuel from reaching U.S. ports rather than an indication the global glut of crude that has been weighing on prices is truly shrinking.
“I don’t think it’s any sort of fundamental change,” said Mark Anderle, director of supply and trading at TAC Energy. “You’d need to see this type of drop for more than a month to get back to the levels we were at a year ago.”
U.S. crude oil for October delivery settled $2.12, or 4.7%, higher at $47.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, rose $2.01, or 4.2%, to $49.99 a barrel for November delivery on ICE Futures Europe, after briefly bursting above $50 a barrel.
Source: OPEC/ WSJ
