Every day, traders in London congregate at 4 p.m. to buy and sell North Sea oil for half an hour. The window, as it’s known in the industry, is where competition between the most powerful players in the market sets the price of Brent crude.
Saudi Aramco has completed its purchase of a 70% stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) for $69.1 billion.
After flooding the U.S. with crude earlier this year, Saudi Arabia has all but cut off the taps to the American oil market.
Saudi Aramco has paused its contract for the High Island IV jack-up rig, owned by Shelf Drilling.
Oil was anchored near $38 a barrel as expectations U.S. crude stockpiles extended declines offset a decision by Saudi Arabia to cease extra voluntary production cuts by the end of this month.
Oil rose to trade near $43 a barrel in London after OPEC and its allies agreed to extend historic output curbs by an extra month, promising stricter compliance to ensure members don’t pump more than they pledged.
OPEC+ agreed to a one-month extension of its record output cuts and adopted more stringent methods to ensure members don’t break their production pledges.
Oil headed for a sixth weekly gain after OPEC+ reached a tentative agreement to prolong its record production cuts and U.S. jobs data were better than expected.
Africa has been the hardest hit region in terms of rig numbers, according to Baker Hughes’ May data.
Oil declined as OPEC+ unity was threatened by a long-running feud over compliance with production cutbacks.
Oil erased gains as the OPEC+ meeting was put in doubt over cheating by some nations on their output-cuts deal.
Oil prices rose past $40 per barrel mark on Wednesday amid speculation that quotas for international production cuts could be kept higher for longer.
A popular exchange traded fund that uses complex derivatives to track oil is being investigated by U.S. regulators over whether its risks were properly disclosed to investors, scrutiny triggered by crude’s historic slump during the coronavirus crisis, said three people familiar with the matter.
Middle East and African banks face mounting pressure from the gathering macroeconomic storm and oil price pressure, Fitch Ratings has said.
Oil edged higher as signs of a recovery in demand continued to surface following the easing of virus-led lockdowns in some regions, while Saudi Arabia pledged to cut production further.
Negative oil prices, ships dawdling at sea with unwanted cargoes, and traders getting creative about where to stash oil. The next chapter in the oil crisis is now inevitable: great swathes of the petroleum industry are about to start shutting down.
Oil prices have plunged to record lows this past week. While one particular benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, went below minus $40 per barrel a week ago, that is headline grabbing but not the primary concern.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has called for the OPEC-led group to take more production offline and faster than previously agreed.
As Coronavirus lockdowns continue to spread around the world, the oil industry faces more disruption to demand and supply chains, with many margins and prices already collapsing.
Saudi Arabia and Russia signaled they may be open to further output cuts after the latest OPEC+ deal to curb global oil supplies failed to stem the crude’s downward spiral.
The Kremlin may have succeeded in ending its oil war with Saudi Arabia, yet the pain of crude’s crash is only just starting to hit Russia’s budget.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf suppliers may have agreed to cut oil production again starting next month, but by all indications the taps are set to remain wide open until then -- swelling stockpiles for at least a few more weeks.
“Baselines matter” is one takeaway from the deal brokered over the weekend to save the market.
Lamprell is in the process of shutting two of its three facilities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in order to reduce overheads.
North Sea firms still face “very tough” times despite the Opec cartel and its allies striking a landmark deal to reduce output by almost 10 million barrels of oil per day, a top petro-economist has said.