Oil futures remained steady on early Wednesday after touching an almost four-week high on the previous session. This is after oil kingpin Saudi Arabia promised to put an end to global oil surplus.
According to the energy minister of Saudi Arabia, they will keep an eye on the ways on how to curb the bloated oil market in industrialized companies. They also brought up the idea of prolonging the output cuts the moment when the deal of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce production ends.
Khalid Al-Falih told Reuters last Tuesday that they are very flexible in term of remaining their options open, adding that he is fully determined to “do whatever it takes” to stabilize the bloated market, even if it would take as much as five years.
Looking at the price of oil, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices lost as much as 4 cents to settle at $52.43 per barrel. WTI added 57 cents to the last trade. The international benchmark for oil prices Brent crude gained 10 cents to finish at $58.43 per barrel. Brent futures jumped as high as 1.7 percent or 96 cents on Tuesday.
The American Petroleum Institute said yesterday that crude stocks in the United States dropped by 519,000 barrels last week. Results came in lower than the expected 2.6 million barrel decline. Meanwhile, gasoline stocks also fell by 5.8 million, greater than what analysts expected of a 17,000 barrel decline.