OIL PRICE: ABOVE $57 YET

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG, OILPRICE - Oil prices rose on Friday as both U.S. crude production and inventories declined, pointing towards a tightening market. 

Strong Chinese oil import data also supported crude prices, traders said. 

With the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) leading a production cut, analysts said that global oil markets were now broadly balanced after years of oversupply. 

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was at $51.01 per barrel at 0647 GMT, up 41 cents, or 0.8 percent, from its last settlement. Brent was at $56.58, up 33 cents, or 0.6 percent. 

U.S. crude inventories dropped 2.7 million barrels in the week to Oct. 6, to 462.22 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said late on Thursday. 

Crude production slipped 81,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 9.48 million bpd. 

Strong Chinese oil imports, which averaged 8.5 million bpd between January and September and hit 9 million bpd in September, also supported prices, as China solidified itself as the world's biggest importer. 

China's huge imports have been strongly driven by purchases for its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR). 

"It seems the majority of this is SPR buying, not consumer demand," said Matt Stanley, a fuel broker at Freight Investor Services (FIS). 

China has spent around $24 billion on building its crude reserves since 2015 and now holds around 850 million barrels of oil in inventory, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). 

Despite the tightening market, Bernstein Research said that OPEC would need to extend the cuts beyond the current expiry date in March 2018 to further reduce excess stocks. 

"OPEC will not achieve normalized inventory levels before cuts expire at the end of March," Bernstein said, but added that "we believe an extension of cuts through 2018 should allow inventories to reach normalized levels before the end of 2018". 

OPEC, together with other producers including Russia has been restraining output since January. The pact to cut production is set to expire by the end of March 2018, and there are discussions for an extension. 

Traders said they were awaiting a decision later on Friday by U.S. President Donald Trump on whether to continue to certify the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. 

Trump is expected not to certify the agreement, which has to be re-certified every 90 days and is due for renewal on Sunday. 

The step would not withdraw the United States from the deal but would give the congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose new sanctions. 

"U.S. sanctions could cut off a lot of Iranian oil trade finance," FGE President Jeff Brown told Reuters this week. 

"Last time we saw this, it cut off 1 million bpd of supplies. I don't think it'd be that big this time round, but it would still be significant," said Brown.

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Earlier:

October, 11, 13:00:00 OIL PRICE: NOT BELOW $56 Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were trading at $56.75 per barrel at 0649 GMT, up 14 cents, or 0.25 percent, from their last close. Brent also rose 2 percent the previous day. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $51.09 a barrel, up 17 cents, or 0.33 percent, from their last settlement. Prices rose 2 percent the day before to back above $50 a barrel.

October, 11, 12:50:00 OIL PRICES 2020: $50 - $60 Based on a “lower-for-longer” base-case scenario, global oil prices will remain in the $50-60/bbl range until late 2020, due to increasing supply that breaks even at $50/bbl, according to to the most recent global oil supply and demand outlook from McKinsey Energy Insights (MEI).

October, 9, 21:55:00 OIL PRICE: NOT BELOW $55 Global benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was down 2 cents at $55.60 a barrel at 11:31 a.m. EDT (1531 GMT). Earlier in the session it touched a three-week low of $55.06. It ended last week 3.3 percent lower, its biggest weekly loss since June 2017. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 were trading at $49.46, up 17 cents. They came close to a four-week low when they fell to $49.13 earlier in the session. WTI’s losses last week came to 4.6 percent.

October, 6, 13:00:00 OIL PRICE: ABOVE $56 YET Global benchmark Brent crude futures were up 7 cents at $57.07 a barrel at 0848 GMT. Week on week, the contract was set for a near 1 percent loss, snapping a five-week winning streak that was the longest since June 2016. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was at $50.59, down 20 cents. It was set to close the week down more than 2 percent, the biggest weekly loss in three months.

October, 6, 12:50:00 NEW OIL COALITION As the world's two largest oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia have led the 24-country OPEC/non-OPEC coalition in its 1.8 million b/d supply cut, which is scheduled to end in March.

October, 4, 23:59:00 OIL PRICE: ABOVE $55 U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were at $50.16 per barrel at 0648 GMT, down 26 cents, or 0.5 percent, from their last close. They fell below $50 per barrel earlier in the session. Brent crude futures LCOc1 were down 22 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $55.78 a barrel.

October, 4, 23:30:00 ЦЕНА URALS: $ 50,55 Средняя цена нефти марки Urals по итогам января - сентября 2017 года составила $ 50,55 за баррель.