Crude Oil Prices Climb as US Reserves Begin to Decline

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Global crude prices climb on Thursday morning, Jakarta time, after official figures indicate that United States (US) oil reserves begin to decrease.

July contracts of the US benchmark, the light sweet crude oil or the West Texas Intermediate (WTI), went up by US$1.29 to conclude trading at US$61.43 per barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), according to Xinhua. 

Meanwhile, July contracts for the European benchmark—the Brent North Sea oil—similarly went up by 82 cents to end trading at US$65.7 per barrel at the end of the trading session in London. 

It is known that US crude oil reserves dipped by 1.29 million barrels to stand at 470.6 million barrels, said the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) in its weekly report released on Wednesday evening, local time. 

Reserves in Cushing, Oklahoma—the main shipping point for US crudes—went down by 820,000 barrels to stand at 58 million barrels, although the overall US crude oil production output climbed by 24,000 barrel to stand at 9.61 million barrels per day, as per last week. 

EIA predicts that Brent prices will average at US$61 per barrel throughout 2015, before climbing to US$67 per barrel in 2016—higher than WTI prices, which are expected to trade at around US$5 lower than its European counterpart. 

ANTARA