By Srinivas Chowdary Sunkara // petrobazaar // 12th July, 2018.
Yesterday, WTI fell $3.73 to $70.38 a barrel, its lowest finish since June, 2017 and Brent dropped to $73.4, a steepest drop of 6.92 pct, marking its lowest settlement since Feb, 2016. This one day plunge can be attributed to the fact that the market players took profits after Libya lifted force majeure on eastern oil ports to restore the supplies.
OPEC reported an increase of 173tb supplies in June to average 32.33 Mb/d also fueled the bearishness in the market. API weekly stock report partially proved correct as the EIA confirmed a major draw of 12.6Mb in U.S crude stocks. Libya's announcement overshadowed the bullish weekly stats.
Fresh U.S tariffs on China's products caused further trade tariff tensions in the financial markets which were escalated to oil markets could be shown as another bearish factor. U.S continued blaming China and OPEC as usual. I believe that Chinese admin started negotiating with U.S since the the low level bureaucrats on both sides have been in touch after a halt of negotiation in the last month. Asia trading opened in positive territory since the market shifted focus on weekly stats.
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