By Ken Afor
On Thursday, oil prices continued to decline as the US increased its production and Asia’s energy requirement came into question, which it had started doing in the previous session.
At 0001 GMT, Brent futures dropped to $80.90 per barrel, a decrease of 28 cents. Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) dropped to $76.35 per barrel, a difference of 31 cents.
The major commodities saw more than a 1.5% decrease in the previous session.
Wednesday saw the front-month contract for WTI trading at a discount to the second month, a phenomenon referred to as contango; this discount was the widest since July at -15 cents. Such a structure hints at investors’ expectations that prices will rise in the coming months.
Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that U.S. crude stocks had risen by 3.6 million barrels to 421.9 million barrels, greatly surpassing the 1.8 million-barrel increase that was predicted by analysts in a Reuters poll.
The U.S. remained at a maximum of 13.2 million barrels per day with no alteration in its crude production.
In October, China saw weakened demand for industrial fuel and narrowed refining margins which caused the oil refineries’ throughput rate to decrease from the previous month’s peak.
Despite this, the country’s economic activity still grew as industrial output increased quicker than anticipated and retail sales rose beyond expectations.
