Crude oil drifts lower; producers to unveil new output levels

Oil prices edged lower Monday, handing back some of the previous week’s strong gains but remaining near three-week highs on expectations that major producers will keep supplies tight.

By 05:05 ET (09.05 GMT), the U.S. crude futures traded 0.2% lower at $85.42 a barrel, while the Brent contract dropped 0.2% to $88.42.

Both contracts ended last week at their highest levels in more than half a year, with the Brent contract gaining just under 5% over the course of the week, and the WTI contract over 6%, helped by a substantially bigger-than-expected draw in U.S. inventories.

October output levels eyed
Volumes are limited Monday, with the U.S. on holiday, and traders appear to have banked some profits as they await news of the expected output levels from some of the top producers in the world.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said late last week that Moscow had reached a new deal with its OPEC peers to further cut supplies, and will outline more reductions in production this week.

More importantly, Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is widely expected to shortly announce its decision over whether to extend a voluntary one million barrel per day oil production cut into October.

“We believe that the Saudis will likely roll over the cut into October, as they will not want to put any renewed downward pressure on the oil market, although fundamentally, the market should be able to absorb the return of these barrels, given the large deficit forecast for the rest of the year,” said analysts at ING, in a note.

U.S., Chinese data helps tone
Helping last week’s gains was the news that while U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew more than expected in August, the unemployment rate rose and wage growth steadied. This suggested the Federal Reserve will not put a further dampener on the economy by raising interest rates this month.

Additionally, PMI readings showed that business activity in the world’s largest economy remained robust, pushing up hopes that oil demand will remain relatively strong despite an expected seasonal downturn.

U.S. data releases this week are unlikely to significantly change the dial, there are several Fed speakers during the coming week, including Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, who speaks Wednesday.

In China, manufacturing activity unexpectedly expanded in August, data from Caixin’s manufacturing PMI survey indicated, reducing some of the pessimism about the economic health of the world’s largest oil importer.

Chinese trade data are due on Thursday, and traders will be looking for evidence of increased crude demand, as a sign of a growing economy.

Speculators reduce Brent net longs
Elsewhere, the latest positioning data shows that speculators reduced their net long in ICE (NYSE:ICE) Brent by 15,544 lots over the last reporting week, leaving them with a net long of 202,227 lots as of last Tuesday.

“However, given the move in the market since then, along with the increase in open interest, the actual speculative net long has likely increased,” added ING.