Crude oil futures fell sharply in Sunday evening trading and while prices were more than $1 above those lows at midday Monday, contracts have struggled to attract much buying.
OPEC+ members on Saturday agreed to increase production in June by 411,000 b/d for a second straight month.
Although the output boost was expected, the news still led to aggressive selling as more barrels on the market are expected to widen the crude oversupply.
The NYMEX June West Texas Intermediate contract bottomed out at $55.40/bbl before regaining some ground to trade near midday at $56.72/bbl, down by $1.57.
While the contract held above the April 9 settlement of $55.12/bbl, a settlement in this area would represent a multi-year low.
The July Brent contract spent most of the morning below $60/bbl and traded as low as $58.50/bbl. At midday the contract was $1.48 lower at $59.81/bbl.
Refined product contracts were also lower, but were out-performing crude futures, leaving a bit of upside for paper crack spreads. The RBOB crack spread was at about $27/bbl near midday.
The NYMEX June RBOB contract fell as low as $1.9582/gal, putting it several cents above early April lows. The contract, however, had recovered a bit near midday to trade close to where it opened Sunday trading, down about 2.5cts to $1.9952/gal.
The NYMEX June ULSD contract, which slipped below gasoline futures after it moved to the front-month position late last week, was down just inside of 2cts at $1.9744/gal.
This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
--Reporting by Denton Cinquegrana, dcinquegrana@opisnet.com; Editing by Jeff Barber, jbarber@opisnet.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 05, 2025 12:38 ET (16:38 GMT)
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