Singapore — Crude oil futures were lower during mid-morning trade in Asia Friday amid expectations that OPEC+ members will not deepen production cuts at their upcoming meeting next week.
At 10:53 am Singapore time (0253 GMT), ICE January Brent crude futures were down 17 cents/b (0.27%) from Thursday's settle at $63.70/b.
The front-month NYMEX January light sweet crude contract was 5 cents/b (0.19%) lower than Wednesday's settlement at $58.04/b. There was no settlement for NYMEX on Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.
"Crude oil prices dipped as hopes of deeper cuts from OPEC faded," ANZ analysts said in a report early Friday.
"We see the market pushing into a small surplus in H1 2020 and tightening in H2 on the back of stronger demand. As a result, we don't expect the OPEC+ group to deepen cuts," the analysts said.
News reports late Thursday indicated that a key OPEC advisory committee has suggested that the oil market will remain balanced in 2020 if OPEC+ members maintain production cuts at current levels.
Separately, Russian oil executives met with Energy Minister Alexander Novak Thursday ahead of the OPEC+ meeting in Vienna over December 5-6.
"We proposed to stay in the deal with the same quotas, and at the end of the first quarter meet and discuss," Ravil Maganov, first executive vice president of Lukoil, said following the meeting.
"I think that there is no sense in extending [the deal] now. We need to see. The market is still unstable, so we need to look at it until April and then decide," he added.
The comments followed Energy Information Administration data Wednesday showing that US crude inventories rose 1.57 million barrels to 451.95 million barrels in the week ended November 22.
In contrast, analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts earlier in the week had been expecting a 600,000-barrel draw.
"Coming right after data showing an increase in US crude supplies, the OPEC+ news continued to put pressure on oil prices," OCBC Bank analysts said in a report Friday.
As of 0253 GMT, the US Dollar Index was down 0.04% at 98.265.
--Ada Taib, ada.taib@spglobal.com
--Edited by Wendy Wells, wendy.wells@spglobal.com