DTN Oil Update
Dollar Pushes Oil Lower; US Inventory Report Awaited
SECAUCUS, N.J. (DTN) -- Crude futures fell Tuesday, Nov. 4, as a rallying dollar weighed on commodity markets. Benchmark prices briefly fell beneath critical thresholds despite OPEC+ efforts to stabilize supply.
The NYMEX WTI futures contract for December delivery settled down $0.49 at $60.56 bbl, after dipping to $59.94 during the session -- breaking below the key $60 mark.
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ICE Brent for December delivery settled down $0.45 at $64.44 bbl, with the session low of $63.82 registering well beneath the key $65 level.
Refined products bucked the lower trend in crude. Front-month ULSD futures rose $0.0342 to $2.4395 gallon while November RBOB gasoline futures fell $0.0052 to $1.9213 gallon.
The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.328 points to 100.035 against a basket of foreign currencies, after a two-month high at 100.07 -- a move that depressed prices across commodity markets.
The dollar has witnessed a resurgence since U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell indicated last week that the central bank could skip an interest rate cut in December, after back-to-back quarter-percentage point reductions in October and September.
Pressure on crude prices have mounted over the last three months amid rising production, with U.S. output, particularly, hitting an all-time high of 13.8 million bpd in August.
Concerns about elevated supplies persisted this week even after eight OPEC+ countries committed to pausing planned production hikes for the first quarter of 2026.
The group -- Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman -- is still set to increase December output by 137,000 barrels per day as part of a gradual rollback of voluntary output cuts of 1.65 million bpd first announced in April 2023.
Market participants were, meanwhile, awaiting the American Petroleum Institute's 4:30 p.m. EST release of oil inventory numbers for the week ended Oct. 31. It will be the first U.S. inventory report since the Energy Information Administration reported a second consecutive week of declines in commercial crude stockpiles for the week ended Oct. 24.