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Brent crude erases gains at settlement, settles below $73
Oil prices erased early gains during trading on Thursday, as US crude inventories were assessed to have fallen more than expected during the week ending August 30, amid OPEC+’s suspension of the planned increase in oil production for two months.
Brent crude futures for November delivery settled at $72.69 a barrel at settlement, after touching $74.20.
While US Nymex crude futures for October delivery settled at $69.15 a barrel, after touching $70.82.
Earlier on Thursday, oil prices rose nearly 1%, driven by a larger-than-expected drop in US inventories and OPEC+’s delay in increasing production after futures fell to multi-month lows in the previous session on concerns about demand from China.
OPEC said in a statement on Thursday that eight OPEC+ countries had agreed to extend voluntary output cuts by two months until the end of November.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said U.S. crude inventories fell by 6.9 million barrels in the week to Aug. 30.
That was much larger than the 1 million-barrel draw analysts had expected in a Reuters poll, but in line with a 7.4 million-barrel draw reported by industry group the American Petroleum Institute on Wednesday.
