Oil futures rise on market’s long-term bearish focus

Brent oil futures rose on Friday as the market focused on bearish longer-term factors after gains in the previous session.

The gains were driven by U.S. crude inventories in a key hub falling to their lowest in nearly four years.

Brent crude futures were at 73.59 dollars per barrel, up 14 cents from their last close.

While U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at 68.96 dollars per barrel at 12.09 GMT.

Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), showing stocks at the Cushing storage hub in Oklahoma, fell by 1.3 million barrels, the lowest level since October 2014, helped to push Brent futures to close higher on Thursday.

Close oil pricing monitor expert still maintains oil ought to be 100 dollars but for manipulators reporting.

Low stocks were still providing a floor as even with last week’s rise, overall U.S. crude inventories are below the five-year average of around 420 million barrels.

Elsewhere, Russian oil output rose by 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July from a month earlier, to 11.21 million bpd, energy ministry data showed on Thursday.

Output by top exporter Saudi Arabia has also risen recently, to around 11 million bpd and U.S. production, C-OUT-T-EIA, is around that level as well.

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have increased production to help to compensate for an anticipated shortfall in Iranian crude supplies once planned U.S. sanctions take effect later this year.

But a complete halt to Iranian supplies looks unlikely with Bloomberg reporting on Friday that China, Iran’s biggest customer, has rejected a U.S. request to cut imports from the OPEC member.

China’s Unipec has also suspended purchases of U.S. crude amid the growing trade row, sources said.