The price of crude oil was moving higher Thursday morning after a report from the International Energy Agency indicated drop in OPEC crude oil supplies in August due to Libyan crisis.
Earlier today, the IEA in its monthly Oil Market Report maintained 2014 forecast and said the underlying macroeconomic backdrop solidifies. Further, the agency noted that OPEC crude oil supplies edged down by 260,000 bd m-o-m in August, to 30.51 mbd, as near-record Saudi output only partly offset a collapse in Libyan production. Libya's output fell almost 50 percent to an average of 550,000 barrels in August from 1 million barrels in July.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for October delivery, gained $0.94 to $108.50 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled marginally higher after the official Energy Information Administration weekly report showed U.S. crude stockpiles to have declined, albeit much lesser than expected.
Wednesday during trading hours, the EIA said US crude oil inventories inched down 0.20 million barrels, while gasoline stocks added 1.70 million barrels in the weekended September 06. Analysts expected crude oil inventories to decline 2.10 million barrels and gasoline stocks are seen shedding 0.90 million barrels last week.
This morning the U.S. dollar was lingering near its 2-week low versus the euro and the Swiss franc. The buck was extending its 7-month low against sterling, while trading higher against the yen.
In economic news, euro zone industrial production declined at a faster-than-expected pace in July driven by widespread weakness across sub-sectors, official data showed. Industrial output fell 1.5 percent in July from a month ago, reversing a 0.6 percent rise in June, Eurostat reported. It was forecast to fall by 0.3 percent.
From the U.S., the Labor Department will release its jobless claims report for the week ended September 7 at 8:30 am ET. Economists expect jobless claims to increase to 330,000 from 323,000 in the previous week.
Separately, the Department will release its report on export and import prices for August. Economists expect the export index to edge up 0.1 percent from the previous month, while import prices may have risen 0.5 percent.
