Oil Prices Slip a Little
August 26 2016 - 5:40AM
Dow Jones News
LONDON—Oil prices were down slightly Friday with global crude
benchmarks Brent and its U.S. counterpart West Texas Intermediate
hovering around $47 to $50 a barrel.
The October contract for Brent on London's ICE Futures exchange
was down 0.46% at $49.44 a barrel while WTI fell 0.06% at $47.29 a
barrel.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen is due to deliver a
speech later today at the annual central bankers' summit at Jackson
Hole, Wyo. Analysts and economists will scrutinize her remarks for
clues about rate increases in the coming months and the Fed's
preparations to tackle the next economic downturn.
An increase in U.S. interest rates would lift the dollar, which
would make oil more expensive for traders who conduct business in
other currencies.
"Traders are skeptical that Yellen will deliver an upbeat
assessment of the U.S. economy, one strong enough to prompt
interest rate increases," said Stuart Ive, a client manager at OM
Financial.
Meanwhile in Asia, after a summer of muted oil demand in
industrial powerhouse China, September and October crude deliveries
are buoyant. The London-based Energy Aspects said in a note that
storage units constructed for China's strategic petroleum reserve
are coming onstream through September and October which is driving
the higher demand.
The think tank added that Chinese independent refineries, known
as teapots, should also drive fourth quarter demand as they rush to
use up respective yearly import quotas.
The U.S. oil-field services company Baker Hughes releases its
weekly rig count data later today. Last week witnessed a rise of 10
rigs in the U.S. and market observers will be watching closely to
see if the recovery is continuing.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for September—the
benchmark gasoline contract—fell 44 points to $1.5070 a gallon,
while September diesel traded at $1.5097, 3 points higher.
ICE gas oil for September changed hands at $438.50 a metric ton,
up $1.25 from Thursday's settlement.
Write to Kevin Baxter at Kevin.Baxter@wsj.com and Jenny Hsu at
jenny.hsu@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 26, 2016 05:25 ET (09:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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