DTN Oil Update
WTI, Brent Crude Fall on Mideast Diplomatic Talks
HOUSTON (DTN) --Oil crude futures fell on Monday morning as Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish officials prepared to meet in Tehran for talks aimed at preventing a further escalation of tensions in the Middle East.
The diplomatic efforts followed comments from U.S. president Donald Trump on Sunday that he was still deciding whether to pursue an agreement with Iran or take action to "finish them off."
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Eight months into the Iran-Israel-U.S. conflict, vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained highly constrained, with just eight vessels transiting the key waterway in the last 24 hours, compared with an average daily rate of nearly 60 vessels, according to vessel tracking data.
The front-month ICE Brent dropped $1.90 to $115.947 barrel (bbl) while the NYMEX WTI futures contract for December delivery fell $1.44 to $101.82 bbl.
In contrast, the NYMEX ULSD futures contract for November delivery rose $0.0130 to $4.9972 gallon, while front-month NYMEX RBOB futures increased g $0.0369 to $3.2485 gallon.
The U.S. dollar index climbed 0.222 points to 101.87 against a basket of foreign currencies.
In domestic developments, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) authorized an emergency exchange of up to 400,000 bbl of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to support operations at Phillips 66's 264,000-barrels per day (bpd) Lake Charles refinery in Louisiana following a disruption to crude oil deliveries.
The DOE said Friday that the crude will be released from its West Hackberry SPR site in Louisiana for immediate delivery, helping the refinery maintain production of gasoline, diesel and other transportation fuels serving regional markets.
U.S. refineries have been running at high utilization rates and postponing winter to meet strong refined-product demand, particularly for diesel, as exports demand has been prioritized over domestic supplies. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported last week that U.S. refinery utilization rose to 93.4% during the week ended Oct. 16, up from 88.6% recorded the same week last year.
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