By Srinivas Chowdary Sunkara // petrobazaar // 16th May, 2019.
Brent oil prices edged 53 cents up to $71.77 and WTI prices inched 24 cents up to $62.02 a barrel last night. Shanghai crude oil main contract futures rose by 1.1 Yuan or 0.22% to 500.9 Yuan/barrel while MCX crude oil futures settled Rs.14 up to Rs.4366 yesterday. In the global markets, Prospect of intensifying tensions in the Middle East which may tighten global supplies overshadowed the surprise build in U.S crude stocks.
Turning to weekly stats, The U.S government data reported a piling up of 5.4Mbpd of commercial crude stocks due to increase in crude imports while gasoline stocks were drawn by 1.1Mbpd during the last week. Distillates stocks rose by 0.1Mbpd. Crude oil production numbers came down by 100kpbd to 12.1Mbpd. Coming to monthly oil reports, IEA said that it would require very little oil from OPEC countries as the U.S compensated most of the missing barrels from Iran and Venezuela. The energy watch dog revised demand forecast by 90Kbpd down to 1.3 Mbpd for the year 2019.
Today, Asian markets are opened in green and trading up at the time of writing. Oil prices continue to draw support from mounting tensions in Middle East, A potential threat to global supplies. Have a good day.
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