Crude futures finish little lower for the week
Crude-oil future prices for sweet light crude for November delivery which had ended at $81.66/bbl last week (28 Sept) finished 44 cents (0.04%) lower this week (05 October) at $81.22/bbl. Prices continued to stay above the $80/bbl mark throughout the whole week. It only dropped marginally on Wednesday, 3 October after an Energy Department report showed that U.S. inventories unexpectedly increased last week.
During the week, weak dollar kept crude prices high. The dollar had touched a record low against the euro for several consecutive trading days. A lower dollar makes oil cheaper in the countries using other currencies.
Prices finally fell back on the last day of the week, 5 October after the Labor Department came out with a strong September job report. Dollar partially strengthened following the report.
As per this week’s inventory report by the Energy Dept, crude supplies rose by 1.2 million barrels to stand at 321.8 million barrels in the week ended 28 September. Market was expecting a decline in crude supplies. Refineries activity rose to 87.5% from 86.9%.
Motor gasoline inventories fell to 191.3 million barrels, down 100,000 barrels. Distillate supplies were pegged at 135.9 million barrels, down 1.2 million barrels on the week.
November natural gas dropped by 4.6%, or 33.9 cents, to end at $7.073 per million British thermal units but it was still up 2.9% for the week.
Oil prices have risen 15% during the third quarter, the biggest quarterly percentage gain since the first quarter of 2005.
OPEC has planned to boost daily oil production by 500,000 barrels. OPEC's production target is 27.2 million barrels a day, beginning 1 Nov. OPEC, has decided to raise their daily output by 500,000 barrels per day, starting 1 November.