Lately, experts have been getting rather controversial data on the US crude market, like an increase in oil production with a steady decline in the number of active oil rigs.
According to Baker Hughes company, rig count decreased the thirteenth consecutive week and hit its lowest level since May 2010, falling by 10 to 545.
Meanwhile, the crude prices have been declining in line with the number of drilling rigs, thus forcing the oil producers to curb production. However, the output did not fall.
For example, the recent data from the US Energy Information Administration showed that oil production in the United States reached its highest level since August 28. Nevertheless, crude prices extend fall.
On Friday, oil prices experienced another slump. Ahead of the OPEC meeting, Bloomberg published an article saying that the organization decided to raise its production ceiling by 1.5 million barrels per day. Against the backdrop of the news, the futures started to fall rapidly, but actually, the OPEC member states postponed the decision until the next year. The official statement of the OPEC meeting had no mentioning of raising the production ceiling by 1.5 million barrels per day from 30 to 31.5 million barrels per day.
However, oil prices failed to rebound and continued to fall on Monday.
Therefore, experts are inclined to think that the United States deliberately keeps prices lower. It is obvious that sharp fluctuation on the market occurs in light of disputable reports by the US news agencies. It is still not clear how the United States manages to retain the output with falling number of drilling rigs. Some experts believe that a lot of shale companies have prices hedged for three years ahead, and the slump will not affect their business.
