{"id":2814,"date":"2023-04-06T19:12:35","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T19:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/oil-steady-notches-3rd\/"},"modified":"2023-04-12T23:54:06","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T23:54:06","slug":"oil-steady-notches-3rd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/oil-steady-notches-3rd\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil steady, notches 3rd weekly gain after shock OPEC+ cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HOUSTON (Reuters) -Oil prices were little changed on Thursday but posted a third weekly gain as markets weighed further production cuts targeted by OPEC+ and falling U.S. oil inventories against fears about the global economic outlook.<\/p>\n<p>Brent crude settled up 13 cents, or 0.2%, at $85.12 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate U.S. crude closed 9 cents, or 0.1%, higher at $80.70. There will be no trading on the Good Friday holiday.<\/p>\n<p>Both benchmarks jumped more than 6% this week after OPEC+, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, surprised the market on Sunday with a pledge of production cuts. <\/p>\n<p>Hedge funds have bought crude all week, moving from the sidelines back into &#8220;risk on&#8221; mode, said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. <\/p>\n<p>Prices drew support from a steeper-than-expected drop and a second consecutive weekly drawdown in U.S. crude inventories last week. Gasoline and distillate inventories also declined, hinting at rising demand. [EIA\/S]<\/p>\n<p>U.S. energy firms this week also cut the number of oil rigs for a second week in a row. The rig count, an early indicator of future output, dropped two to 590 this week, Baker Hughes data showed. [RIG\/U]<\/p>\n<p>Limiting gains, however, U.S. labor market data pointed to slowing economic growth, and there was also slower-than-expected growth in the U.S. services sector. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Demand destruction as function of the threat of recession is greater than the cut by OPEC+,&#8221; said Robert Yawger, said director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities.<\/p>\n<p>Buyers of put options that hedge downside risk were more active than buyers of call options, which bets on rising prices, implying traders were worried prices could fall, Yawger added.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The oil market&#8217;s bullish momentum may have paused, but upside potential remains given the tightening supply backdrop,&#8221; said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in HoustonAddditional reporting by Reporting by Alex Lawlerin London, Katya Golubkova in Tokyo and Muyu Xu in SingaporeEditing by Marguerita Choy and Deepa Babington)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/oil-steady-notches-3rd\/pump-jacks-operate-at-sunset-in-an-oil-field-in\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ340Z5-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ340Z5-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HOUSTON (Reuters) -Oil prices were little changed on Thursday but posted a third weekly gain as markets weighed further production cuts targeted by OPEC+ and falling U.S. oil inventories against fears about the global economic outlook. Brent crude settled up 13 cents, or 0.2%, at $85.12 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate U.S. crude closed 9 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ340Z5-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8357,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/8357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}