Oil volatile on rising US stocks, supply uncertainty

ANKARA – Oil prices fluctuated in early trade on Wednesday over an expected rise in US crude oil inventories in the world largest oil-consuming country and supply uncertainties ahead of a much-expected meeting of the OPEC+ group International benchmark Brent crude was trading at 10052 per barrel at 929 am local time 0629 GMT for a 002 percent decrease after the previous session closed at 10054 a barrel American benchmark West Texas Intermediate WTI was at 9439 per barrel at the same time for a 003 percent drop after the previous session closed at 9442 a barrel The American Petroleum Institute API announced its estimate of a rise of over 22 million barrels in US crude oil inventories late Tuesday relative to the market expectation of a 467000-barrel fall The predicted increase in stockpiles signals a drop in crude demand in the US the world top oil consumer putting downward pressure on prices The uncertainties around the OPEC+ production scheme for September are set to continue to arouse market volatility ahead of the cartel meeting later on Wednesday The group has gone quiet because they seem to be caught between their inability to increase output anywhere close to as and being the central bank of oil said Christof Ruhl a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy of Columbia University in New York City in his daily energy markets review for Gulf Intelligence Consultancy firm Ruhl said a key question for the group is how to keep Russia in the fold because a group like OPEC+ is more effective the more members it has I think that both Russia and the core OPEC members have a huge incentive to stick together and to devise a new scheme for navigating these choppy waters They may step back a little bit from making big announcements on managing the market for now but they will become significant again the next time oil prices are significantly down Ruhl added Amid numerous uncertainties Ruhl expects oil prices to remain somewhere around 100 a barrel in the third quarter of the year An expected recession and slowdown in economic growth plus the lockdown in China have played a role in bringing oil prices down and there have also been safety valves such as the SPR release and the possibility of Iran and Nigeria producing more So I am quite bearish and expect excess supply to dominate over demand he said adding that the biggest unknown for the second half of the year is the impact of continued sanctions on Russian oil production capacity Upward movements in crude oil prices which are indexed to the US dollar have been suppressed by the rising value of the greenback The US dollar index which measures the value of the American dollar against a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen British pound Canadian dollar Swedish krona and Swiss franc rose 003 percent to 10628 Anadolu }