news

saudi arabia cut the price of its flagship crude oil in asia, its main market, for october as concerns over weakening demand grew. state-owned saudi aramco cut the official selling price of its arab light crude in asia by 70 cents a barrel to $1.30 a barrel above the regional benchmark, compared with market expectations for a 85 cents/barrel cut.

falling refining margins in asia also limit saudi aramco's room to raise prices.

aramco also cut the price of its crude oil to northwest europe by about 80 cents a barrel and reduced the price of its crude oil to north america by 10 cents a barrel.

this week, news showed that opec+ had reached a consensus to postpone the implementation of the plan to increase oil supply by two months. delaying the increase in oil supply could result in saudi arabia's daily exports remaining below 6 million barrels, as has been the case for the past three months.

this week's eia data showed that u.s. crude oil inventories fell sharply to a january low, and crude oil inventories in cushing, the delivery point for wti crude oil, continued to decline, and there is even a risk that oil tanks will bottom out in the future.

although the above-mentioned opec+ postponement of production increase and us crude oil inventory news are positive for oil prices, amid the backdrop of demand concerns, these have failed to save the oil price decline. both us crude oil and brent crude oil have fallen sharply, wiping out all gains this year.

on friday, the non-farm payrolls day, wti october crude oil futures closed down $1.48, or 2.14%, at $67.67 per barrel, setting a new closing low in more than a year, with a cumulative weekly decline of 7.99%. brent november crude oil futures closed down $1.63, or 2.21%, at $71.06 per barrel, with a cumulative weekly decline of 9.82%.

on the same day, data from the u.s. commodity futures trading commission (cftc) showed that speculators' net long positions in nymex wti crude oil fell by 61,659 contracts to 124,868 contracts in the week ended september 3. the net long positions in nymex gasoline fell to 16,668 contracts.

intercontinental exchangedata from the international monetary fund (ice) showed that speculators' net long positions in ice brent crude oil fell by 38,427 contracts to 41,645 contracts in the week ended september 3, a four-week low. net short positions in gasoline increased by 11,740 contracts to 38,199 contracts, a more than eight-year high.