Crude Oil Prices in Asia Edge Up

On Thursday, Asia’s crude oil prices edged up as investors saw the latest sell-off overdone and continued to monitor the declining production from OPEC member Venezuela as it rolls from a debt and inflation crisis.

Crude Oil Prices in Asia went up.

According to the New York Mercantile Exchange, the crude futures for December delivery slowly went up 0.02 percent to $55.34 a barrel, while Brent rose 0.10 percent to $61.94 a barrel based on London’s Intercontinental Exchange.

One of the world’s largest political risk consultancies stated that a default by Venezuela and its state-owned oil company remains highly likely.

"Predicting the precise timing of a default is difficult, as the government seems prepared to keep paying while it can," told the consultancy in a report.

"But if talks falter and it becomes apparent that it doesn’t have options, the government’s calculations may end up being shaped by electoral timing. Venezuela President Nicholas Maduro is considering moving up the presidential election to March of next year, and the debt service profile is relatively light before then with bulkier payments due in April, August, and October."

During the ongoing concerns over the rising U.S. output and build in crude stockpiles for the second week, the crude oil settled lower in just overnight for the third day.

The U.S. crude inventories did not reach the expected draw of 2.2 million barrels but increased by roughly 1.9 million barrels for the week.

The inventories of gasoline rose by 894,000 barrels, while the supplies of distillate fuels – heating oil and diesel – went down by about 799,000 barrels, which is lower than the expected decline of 1.3 million barrels.

As the heating oil season get underway, the bearish data on the refinery products like gasoline and distillate went against the backdrop of an uptick in the refinery activity.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the rising crude output continued as preliminary U.S. production figures showed the weekly crude output rose by 25,000 to an all-time high of 9.65 million barrels per day.

On Tuesday, the EIA said that it was expecting the global crude market to remain oversupplied through the second quarter of 2018, while in the middle of uptick in U.S. production, which could result to US producers ramping up the output.

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