U.S. crude oil traded above $69 per barrel on Thursday, hovering near a nine-month low as the market worries about the supply and demand balance for the rest of the year.
The U.S. benchmark has shed more than 5% this week, while the Brent global benchmark is down 7.2%. Crude oil futures have lost all gains for the year.
Here are Thursday’s energy prices:
- West Texas Intermediate October contract: $69.45 per barrel, up 25 cents, or 0.36%. Year to date, the U.S. benchmark has fallen 3%.
- Brent November contract: $73.09 per barrel, up 39 cents, or 0.54%. Year to date, the global benchmark has pulled back 5.2%.
- RBOB Gasoline October contract: $1.95 per gallon, little changed. Year to date, gasoline has declined 7%.
- Natural Gas October contract: $2.16 per thousand cubic feet, up more than 1 cent, or 0.61%. Year to date, gas has tumbled 14%.
“Oil demand is faltering in China, and here in the United States the gasoline driving season has now ended,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, told CNBC’s “Street Signs” Thursday.
“We’re going into a lower demand period as far as the consumer goes and to top that off we’re going into the seasonal refining maintenance period in the United States and Europe that is going to decrease crude oil demand,” Lipow said.
Meanwhile, there are worries that more supply is coming to the market as demand slows. OPEC+ has plans to increase production in October, and output in Libya could ramp up as rival governments in the North African country have reached an agreement to end a dispute that disrupted supplies.
But the selloff has raised speculation that OPEC+ will delay plans to bring more barrels to market.
“There’s a number of factors that are really working against OPEC over the next few months,” Lipow said. “They want to see Brent crude oil prices at $85 to $90 per barrel to balance their budgets.”