By Adedapo Adesanya
Prices of oil prices slipped on Thursday after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a crude oil inventory increase for the week to November 8.
The Brent crude, which is the global benchmark, as at 9pm on Thursday, dropped 11 cents or 0.18 percent to trade at $62.26 per barrel, while the US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude, recorded a drop of 33 cents equivalent to 0.58 percent to sell at $56.79 per barrel.
The increase in US crude inventory extended by 2.2 million barrels showed seven consecutive weekly inventory builds over the last eight weeks and this added a total of more than 40 million barrels of oil to US commercial inventories of crude oil.
Business Post reported earlier that a forecast had shown an inventory build of 1.6 million barrels, while on Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated a weekly inventory draw of half a million barrels.
The latest World Energy Outlook by the International Energy Agency (IEA) may also have had a negative impact as it reported that it expects global demand for crude oil to peak around the mid-2020s and plateau by 2030, at around 106 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile, prices have stabilized these past few days largely due to two main factors, one is the fact that there are indications from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that deeper production cuts are unlikely to be taken by producers at the December meeting scheduled to hold in the Austrian capital of Vienna on December 5 and 6 between OPEC and its partners.
OPEC Secretary General, Mr Mohammad Barkindo, said on Wednesday that there would likely be downward revisions of supply going into 2020, especially from US shale. He however said that it was too early to say whether further output cuts would be needed.
On the other hand, oil prices were also pressured by growing optimism about a US-China trade deal that would remove a lot of the concern for future oil demand.
Dipo Olowookere