Oil Rises Toward $63 as OPEC Cuts Weighed Against U.S. Supplies

Futures in New York rose as much as 1.2 percent after dropping on Monday. While U.S. inventories are forecast to have added 3.4 million barrels last week, that would mark slower growth than the prior week. OPEC and its partners, which are cutting output to ease the global glut, still expect markets to balance by about the third quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.

Oil has swung around this month after registering its worst February decline in half a decade. Yet record U.S. production and rising American stockpiles have prompted speculation that OPEC and its allies will have to extend their curbs into 2019 to reach their goal of reducing inventories to the five-year average.

U.S. crude inventories are at their highest since December and probably grew again last week, according to a Bloomberg survey before government data due Wednesday. While supplies are set for a fourth weekly advance, the expected increase is smaller than the 5 million-barrel gain a week earlier.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners are said to have complied with pledged curbs at a record rate of 138 percent in February. Compliance among the so-called OPEC-12 was 142 percent, while non-OPEC producers were at 130 percent, one person said, asking not to be named because the figures aren’t public.
more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/oil-trades-near-63-as-risk-aversion-adds-to-u-s-shale-anxiety

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