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U.S. oil production reached a record 13.2 million barrels per day, significantly increasing exports, especially to Europe and Asia. End-of-year tax considerations are prompting traders to export more oil to reduce taxable inventory, with exports expected to average 5 million barrels per day. The integration of WTI Midland in the Brent basket and the European embargo on Russian oil have contributed to the growing popularity of U.S. crude in global markets.

It is déjà vu for major oil producers, who are again considering steeper production cuts. It took only a month after the Hamas attacks on Israel unleashed a punishing war for oil prices to fall below their pre-Oct. 7 level. The steep drop in oil prices last week, with Brent crude briefly dropping to $77 per barrel, led to speculation that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers (OPEC+) will decide to cut production at its next meeting. OPEC’s last-minute decision to delay the meeting, now scheduled for Nov. 30, will only add to the speculation. U.S....

Oil prices dipped early on Wednesday as a report emerged that this weekend’s meeting of the OPEC+ group could be delayed. The November 26 meeting of the ministers of the OPEC+ alliance could be postponed due to OPEC leader Saudi Arabia expressing dissatisfaction over the production levels of the other members, delegates have told Bloomberg. The meeting may be delayed for an unspecified period of time, according to the anonymous delegates who told Bloomberg that the Saudis have been in talks with the other oil producers about their output.

West Texas Intermediary (WTI) Crude Oil price is jumping over 4% to its highest level in three days, briefly recapturing the $85 mark in the Asian session on Monday. The extended rebound in Oil price comes on the heels of the escalating Middle East conflict between Hamas and Israel and concerns over its potential impact on global oil supplies.

The financial world is watching for further contentiousness between United States and Chinese negotiators, as oil traders fear a potential global economic slowdown. Meanwhile, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is trying to push oil prices higher. There was a time when OPEC would have been able to do that. However, the oil markets are facing several supply disruptions and yet the price is dropping. As OPEC prepares to meet at the end of this month and hopes to prop up the price of oil, we can thank U.S. oil production for the lower prices. Because of the 12.4...

For much of last year, the two crude oil benchmarks traced one another pretty closely, with Brent often trading at a relatively minor $1 to $3 per barrel premium to its American counterpart. But the spread between the two blew out after Hurricane Harvey, an event that took several million barrels per day of refining capacity offline for a few weeks. Crude oil piled up into storage, and the glut pushed the WTI benchmark down relative to Brent. The refineries along the Gulf Coast returned to operations within a relatively short period of time, but the effects of the disaster...

Myles UdlandJanuary 25, 2015 Good evening! The weekend is over in New York and near 7:05 pm ET, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was down another 2.5% to $44.45 a barrel.(snip)(snip)

Crude oil prices fell sharply in the fourth quarter of 2014 as robust global production exceeded demand. After reaching monthly peaks of $112 per barrel (bbl) and $105/bbl in June, crude oil benchmarks Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell to $62/bbl and $59/bbl in December, respectively. Brent prices fell below the five-year average in early September and slipped well below the five-year range in November and December. WTI prices have been below the five-year average since early October and below the five year-range since early November. U.S. highlights - Domestic crude oil production increased 1.2 million barrels per day...

Tyler Durden 01/02/2015 Reading headlines and social media commentary in last night's thin trading, one could have been excused for thinking the collapse of global crude oil prices was over and a new renaissance had begun as 'watchers' proclaimed WTI's spurt above $55 (for a nanosecond) as indicative of the lows being in. However, just hours later, following weak European data (and a recognition of massively offside speculative positioning), WTI has collapsed over $3 from the highs and is testing towards a $51 handle.(snip)

Myles Udland December 18, 2014Crude oil is starting to roll over. In late morning trade, West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were giving up earlier gains and were down more than 1% on the day. WTI futures were down near $56 a barrel on Thursday, after briefly touching $59 a barrel earlier. On Wednesday, crude oil had a wild ride, spiking ahead of the Federal Reserve's announcement before giving up those gains. (snip)

Sam Ro December 17, 2014Oil prices are surging. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on Tuesday rose to $58.98 from $54.20. Brent crude rose to $63.50 from about $58.70. At this point, there seems to be no obvious explanation for the move. On Tuesday, oil prices tumbled to five-year lows. WTI touched $53.60 and Brent sank to $59.86, both were the lowest levels since May 2009. (snip)

Having almost touched $59 overnight, WTI crude has collapsed back to a $55 handle, smashing the Ruble lower and high-yield credit spreads higher. US financial stocks are starting to weaken back towards the credit market's warnings as counterparty risk concerns spread...

Myles Udland November 27, 2014Crude oil just broke $70 for the first time since June 2010. West Texas Intermediate crude futures are below $70 after Thursday's OPEC meeting resulted in the oil cartel announcing that it will not cut production. On Thursday, WTI futures were down as low as $68.90, a more than 6% decline in the last 24 hours following the news. (snip)

The gap between crude oil prices in the major trading centers of Midland, Texas and Cushing, Okla. ballooned to $19 Tuesday morning, the widest point this year and second-highest on record. On Tuesday morning, the price for crude oil hit a low of $77.48 per barrel in Midland. In Cushing, the benchmark pricing point for U.S. crude contracts, the price was $96.48. Worldwide crude prices fell, Bloomberg reported, after Iraqi and Kurdish forces regained control of a key dam in Iraq and slowed the advance of Islamic State militants. Midland prices are further depressed because production growth in West Texas’...

For more than a century, the global oil and natural gas supply picture changed only a decade at a time. In the past half-decade, however, the picture has changed with startling speed. That has been particularly true in America. New technologies opened regional production in areas including North Dakota's Bakken Shale and Texas' Eagle Ford basin.

Crude oil inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the primary crude oil storage location in the United States and the delivery location for the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures contract, declined 12 million barrels (29%) over the past seven weeks. On March 14, 2014, Cushing inventories were 30 million barrels, 19 million barrels lower than a year ago and the lowest level since early 2012. The recent drawdown of stocks at Cushing resulted from (1) the startup of TransCanada's Cushing Marketlink pipeline, which is now moving crude from Cushing to the U.S. Gulf Coast; (2)...

One of the most popular trading bets in oil markets, based on attempts to predict price differences between European and U.S. oil benchmarks, is proving to be one of the trickiest as funds suffer losses after sky-high gains earlier this year. For a generation, European and U.S. oil price benchmarks rose and fell more or less in tandem, with U.S. WTI crude usually worth a few dollars more than London's Brent. But in recent years, Middle East unrest and the U.S. shale oil revolution have combined to flip that relationship upside down, decouple it and make it far harder to...

Among other inconveniences, Washington's shutdown could make it harder to keep track of what is going on in a place just over 1,000 miles away from it: Cushing, Okla. Cushing, where several major pipelines meet, is where oil futures are settled physically. So stock levels there are watched closely. The Energy Information Administration releases those figures once a week, but the shutdown could soon prevent it from doing so, leaving the market in the dark. Here's betting, though, that Cushing's tanks are going to empty out some in coming weeks. All else equal, that is bullish for benchmark West Texas...

As far as U.S. shale gas goes, it's pretty much living up to the talk: the newer plays are seeing strong recovery rates over large acreage, meaning gas will keep flowing. That is not the case for shale oil. Productivity of the newest plays to come on drillers' radars have not come close to what's been coming out of the Bakken in North Dakota and Eagle Ford in Texas. And even for those two, he says, peak recovery rates of new wells drilled have been declining and flat, respectively. As a result, drillers are moving on to less productive basins...

The price of the benchmark U.S. crude oil, West Texas Intermediate, fell the most in more than a month Wednesday as American output surged to a 22-year high last week and Chinese manufacturing contracted more than economists estimated.