According to the latest report on the Hong Kong Economic Journal website on August 24, expected data from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) show that due to the impact of the twin storms “Laura” and “Marco”, 57.6% of the country’s crude oil production capacity and 44.6% of natural gas production capacity in the Gulf of Mexico have been temporarily shut down. The region’s crude oil production will also be reduced by approximately 1.0656 million barrels per day. Will this have an impact on global oil supply and, in turn, international oil prices?
Data reported by U.S. offshore operators show that as of now, of the 643 offshore platforms in the region, 114 companies have begun to close offshore facilities and evacuate employees, accounting for 17.73%. Among them are some of the world’s largest oil producers such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Chevron.
The Economic Information Daily reported on August 24 that last week, supply and demand in the international crude oil market once again tended to be unbalanced. One of the important reasons was the increase in crude oil extraction activities in the United States. Baker Hughes, an American oilfield technical services company, revealed that the number of active oil rigs in the United States continued to increase month-on-month, indicating that energy extraction activities are recovering. At this time, the decline in U.S. crude oil production capacity will alleviate this supply and demand imbalance to a certain extent. Affected by this, WTI crude oil opened higher on Monday and briefly rose.
You must know that previously, the slow economic recovery in the Eurozone and the sharp drop in Indian crude oil imports triggered market concerns about the global Concerns about shrinking demand for crude oil. Data show that India’s total crude oil imports hit an 11-year low in July, falling 36% compared with the same period last year. Amid the imbalance between crude oil supply and demand, Brent crude oil fell by about 1% last week.
In the context of sluggish global crude oil demand, China’s strong demand has become an important driving force for the normal operation of the international crude oil market. . Official data shows that in the first seven months of this year, my country imported a total of 320 million tons of crude oil, a year-on-year increase of 12.1%. At the same time, the sluggish crude oil market has also provided Chinese companies with very large discounts for oil purchases. According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs of my country, the average price of crude oil imports in my country has dropped by 29.7% this year. Therefore, after a box of refined oil rose by about 3.5 yuan on August 21, there is little room for subsequent increases in the price of refined oil in my country. </p
