Crude oil prices fall ahead of OPEC general meeting

Since China's oil demand outlook continues to weigh on market sentiment, Brent crude oil fell 1.57% in afternoon trading.

OPECA joint ministerial-level monitoring committee is scheduled to be held on 8/1and in order to prepare for that,Crude oil prices are expected to end negatively in trading at the beginning of the weekIt is.

China's refinery utilization rate is sluggish this month, down 3.5% from the same period last year, and crude oil imports have also decreased 0.325 million tons from the same period last year until June. In response to China's disappointing demand for crude oil, there have been a series of voices predicting an oversupply of crude oil from the end of this year to next year, and today's market has become a burden.

OPEC officials said that the upcoming meetings are routine,There are no plans to change production reduction quotasI suggested it. Some analysts and traders have suggested that OPEC may make changes, but OPEC has promised to be cautious about returning barrels to the market.

Nonetheless, there is a possibility that falling prices will put pressure on Saudi Arabia and Russia, which are major figures in OPEC, to withdraw future production reduction plans.

As of 12:44 p.m. (US Eastern Time), the price of WTI crude oil is $77.09 per barrel, which is $1.19 (-1.52%) lower than the previous day. Brent crude traded at $81.08 per barrel, falling $1.29 (-1.57%).

According to API estimates, US crude oil inventories have declined drastically to around 20 million barrels in the past 4 weeks. This reduction in inventories means that the US has produced an average of 13.3 million barrels of crude oil per day in recent weeks, returning to the highest level in history.

The possibility of a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas is also burdening crude oil prices.