Oil markets slumped on the negative territory on Friday’s session after news that outputs in the United States are slowly rising. However, the recent drop in crude oil stockpiles has somehow limited the declines in prices.
According to the released figure from the Energy Information Administration, the production of crude oil in the United States was last seen at 9.75 million barrels per day (bpd) on January 12. Due to the immense cold snap that resulted in from a number of production outages, production dropped to 9.49 million barrels at the beginning of 2018.
Several oil market analysts are projecting output in the U.S. to soon break through 10 million bpd.
Looking at current oil prices, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices dropped as low as 0.9 percent or 59 cents lower to settle at $63.36 per barrel. Last Tuesday, WTI marked its best level since December 2014 at $64.89 per barrel.
Global benchmark for oil prices Brent crude futures fell more than 0.8 percent or 53 cents down to finish at $68.78 per barrel. Last Monday, Brent reached its December-2014 peak at $70.37 per barrel.
According to several traders, the downfall of oil prices were driven by the U.S. oil output recovery after an immense drop. Expectations that demand will soon fall when winter ends in the northern hemisphere has also influenced the oil market.
However, few analysts are not seeing further declines because prices are still well supported with the production cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).