US oil market gears up for driving season

EIA data showed a healthy pre-driving season report with a draw on crude stocks feeding into an uptick in refinery utilization (its highest level in the past five years) and builds in gasoline and diesel. Production held steady at 10.9m b/d while exports pushed back above 2m b/d and were just shy of 2.4m b/d last week.

However, EIA data is hardly the main focus of the oil market this week. The OPEC meeting gets underway properly on Friday and expectations for a constructive deal still appear tenuous. A proposal to increase production by a small level (between 300k b/d to 600k b/d) may be the most likely outcome but we wouldn’t rule out the risk of no deal being approved at this stage and producers returning to a pump-at-will strategy.

Click here to Download Full article