A snap poll conducted by price reporting agency S&P Global Platts showed that two-thirds of conference attendees thought crude would hold in a narrow range of between $50 and $60 a barrel in the coming year, exactly where it was today.

U.S. Rig Count is up 418 rigs from last year's count of 522, with oil rigs up 325, gas rigs up 93, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 1. Canada Rig Count is up 51 rigs from last year's count of 162, with oil rigs up 29 and gas rigs up 22.

U.S. crude CLc1 was down 8 cents at $51.48 a barrel at 0641 GMT, after earlier rising slightly. Still, the contract is heading for a fourth consecutively weekly gain and is on track for a 9 percent advance this month. Brent LCOc1 rose 1 cent to $57.42 a barrel, heading for a fifth weekly climb and a nearly 10 percent gain for September.

Total petroleum deliveries in August moved up by 1.3 percent from August 2016 to average 20.5 million barrels per day. These were the highest August deliveries in 10 years, since 2007. Compared with July, total domestic petroleum deliveries, a measure of U.S. petroleum demand, decreased 0.6 percent. For year-to-date, total domestic petroleum deliveries moved up 1.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

The government of Turkey said it will deal exclusively with the Iraqi government on oil exports after voters in the semiautonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq supported independence in a controversial referendum.

“Fifty-dollar WTI is not high enough to support a material uptick in oilsands investments,” said Randy Ollenberger, managing director of oil and gas equity research for BMO Capital Markets. “Sustained US$60-plus oil prices are required to support most projects.”

Brent November crude futures were down 14 cents at $58.30 a barrel at 0832 GMT, while U.S. crude for November delivery edged up 11 cents to $51.99.

We expect global demand to increase by nearly 16 million barrels a day until 2040 – at which time it could reach around 111 million barrels a day. A remarkable 70% of this growth is forecast to come from emerging and developing economies in Asia.

If the US were to reimpose nuclear sanctions on Iran, the Trump administration would do so in a way that would have minimal impact on the global oil market, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and several other producers have cut production by about 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) since the start of 2017, helping lift oil prices by about 15 percent in the past three months.