August Nymex WTI prices are trading moderately higher Monday after dropping more than 3% during Friday’s session. WTI posted a close of $84.45, down $2.51, after weak US jobs data fanned concerns about slowing oil demand due to lack of global growth. Negotiations between Norway’s offshore oil workers and employers over pay and pension once again failed to reach a satisfactory conclusion on Sunday, risking a total shutdown in oil and gas production as from Tuesday. The 15-day strike by the three main unions has already prompted nine platforms to be shut and has reduced Norway’s oil production by 15%, costing the world’s fifth largest oil exporter more than $490mln and rattling the global oil markets. The potential loss of more than 2mln barrels a day of Norwegian oil, equivalent to the daily amount consumed by France, comes at an inconvenient time for the global oil market, which is already wrestling with the impact of the loss of Iranian oil and a large scaled disruption of Libyan oil exports. WTI has picked up from session
lows of $84.05 in Asia to now trade $84.79 a barrel, up 34 cents.
EasyForexNews Research Team