Oil in Global Economy Series: Key oil market updates

While the oil market continues to focus on supply/demand fundamentals, these are some key updates that you need to keep a tab on,

• U.S. oil rig count: The United States is continuing to see a surge in production. According to the latest report, the production rose to a new high of 10.525 million barrels per day. Despite fewer rigs operating compared to 2014/15, the production efficiency has pushed the overall production higher.  As of latest report, the numbers of operating rigs declined from 808 to 815, the highest since March 2015. The numbers of operating rigs have increased more than 160 percent since bottoming in May 2016.
   
• Venezuela crisis: Crisis continues in Venezuela. The latest production report from OPEC suggests that the production declined to 1.488 million barrels per day. The production has been declining steadily since 2014 when production reached a peak of 2.9 million barrels per day. However, the country’s leaders remain hopeful of the impact of Petro-the oil backed cryptocurrency used for funding a few months back.
   
• China’s Petro-Yuan: China’s yuan-based oil contract is getting quite an attention as the Chinese reference crude price could act as a regional benchmark for negotiations of spot or term crude oil prices. The contract is made up of seven medium-sour crudes prevalent in the Chinese market—six freely traded Middle East grades (Basrah Light, Dubai, Masila, Oman, Qatar Marine, and Upper Zakum), and China’s Shengli crude.    
   
• Syria strike: The more limited than an expected strike in Syria is having no impact on the oil market and prices around the globe.

Key global oil benchmarks:

WTI - $66.6/barrel

Brent - $71.8/barrel

OPEC basket - $69.3/barrel

Urals - $69.3/barrel

Oman - $70.4/barrel

Dubai - $68.5/barrel

Western Canada Select - $49.8/barrel