Spot premiums for Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai were little changed on Thursday while Murban premiums gained after two sessions of declines.

INVENTORIES:

– U.S. crude oil inventories rose last week as refinery utilisation rates fell in the face of weakening fuel demand, data from the Energy Information Administration showed on Wednesday.

REFINERY REF/OUT

– U.S. oil refiners are expected to have about 1.19 million barrels per day (bpd) of capacity offline in the week ending Oct. 4, decreasing available refining capacity by 85,000 bpd, research company IIR Energy said on Wednesday. Offline capacity is expected to fall to 873,000 bpd in the week ending Oct. 11.

NEWS

– Nigerian crude differentials came under downward pressure on Wednesday, squeezed by abundant supply and narrow refining margins, traders said.

– Oil industry and market reaction to intensifying conflict in the Middle East has largely been muted, reflecting abundant oil supply as U.S. output grows and the OPEC+ producer group prepares to boost production.

– Venezuela’s crude oil and fuel exports declined by almost 9% last month after two large power blackouts and equipment outages at state energy company PDVSA’s crude upgraders, ship monitoring data and documents show.

– OPEC has enough spare oil capacity to compensate for a full loss of Iranian supply if Israel knocks out that country’s facilities, but the producer group would struggle if Iran retaliates by hitting installations of its Gulf neighbours.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Emily Chow, Editing by David Goodman)