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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Oil steady as US supply balances strong demand

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LONDON: Oil prices steadied on Monday as US production hit a record high and Opec members considered boosting supply to balance rising global demand.


Benchmark Brent crude oil was unchanged at $76.79 a barrel by 08:45 GMT. US light crude was up 5 cents at 65.86 a barrel.


Last week, the US contract lost around 3 per cent, adding to a near 5 per cent decline from a week before.


“We are going into summer, the high demand season, and I think we are going to see a fall in US crude oil inventories, but shale oil output is growing.


Which one is going to win is the issue,” said Tony Nunan, risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp.


US crude production climbed in March to 10.47 million


barrels per day (bpd), a monthly record, data from the Energy Information Administration showed last week.


US drillers added two oil rigs in the week to June 1, bringing the total to 861, the most since March 2015, energy services firm Baker Hughes said on Friday.


That was the eighth time drillers have added rigs in the past nine weeks.


Arab oil ministers agreed over the weekend on the need for continued cooperation between members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other big producers to balance global supply, Kuwait’s state news agency KUNA reported on Sunday.


Opec ministers from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Algeria along with their counterpart from Oman met unofficially in Kuwait on Saturday. Opec meets formally on June 22 to set oil policy.


— Reuters


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