Oil prices dipped more than 1 pe rcent on Wednesday, October 12, after Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, reported its September oil output at eight-year highs, offsetting optimism over the group’s pledge to bring a global crude glut under control, Reuters reports.
Brent crude futures were down 56 cents, or 1.1 percent, at $51.85 a barrel at 2:38 p.m. (1838 GMT). (WTI) crude futures settled down 61 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $50.18 per barrel.
The dollar index’s climb to a seven-month peak also weakened demand for greenback-denominated crude among holders of euro and other currencies, traders said.
Adding weight to the market was the possibility that the American Petroleum Institute could report the first build in U.S. crude stocks in six weeks in preliminary inventory numbers due at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT), traders said. Analysts expect the U.S. government to say on Wednesday that crude stockpiles rose 300,000 barrels last week.
Despite the drop, Brent is still up nearly 13 percent since the Saudi-dominated Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries announced on Sept. 27 that the group and other major crude producers will agree on a sizable output cut or freeze to reduce a global glut by Nov. 30 when OPEC meets in Vienna.
Even so, OPEC’s latest monthly report, issued on Wednesday, showed an increase in its oil production in September to the highest in at least eight years and a rise in the forecast for 2017 non-OPEC supply growth.
The group produced 33.39 million barrels per day (bpd) last month, up 220,000 bpd from August, and as much as 890,000 bpd above the new supply target.
