Oil rises on Middle East, U.S. output, but IEA report caps gains

[April 15, 2015] By Himanshu Ojha

LONDON (Reuters) - Brent crude oil prices rose on Wednesday amid tension in the Middle East and signs of a dip in U.S. production, but gains were capped by a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicating that supplies would take longer to tighten than previously expected.

Front-month Brent crude futures were up 53 cents at $58.96 per barrel by 1124 GMT, while U.S. crude futures were up 54 cents to $53.83.

Prices were supported by uncertainty in the Middle East, where fighting continues in Yemen. A Saudi-led campaign of air strikes against Iran-allied Houthi rebels threatened to turn into a ground intervention after Egypt said it had discussed military maneuvers with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies.

"Any instability's always going to keep (prices) fairly buoyant," said Rob Montefusco, a senior trader at Sucden Financial.

In the United States, North Dakota's February oil production fell 15,000 barrels per day (bpd) versus January, although the number of producing wells hit a record high.
 

That followed an Energy Information Administration (EIA) report forecasting U.S. shale production would fall by 45,000 bpd to 4.98 million bpd in May, which would be the first monthly decline in four years.

But world oil markets may take longer to tighten than expected due to supply rising faster than demand, the IEA said on Wednesday. Production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) surged to 31.02 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, almost a two-year high, outweighing a rise in demand.

"Recent developments thus may call into question past expectations that supply and demand responses would tighten the market from mid-year on," the IEA said in its monthly report.

Crude stocks in the U.S. rose 2.6 million barrels last week, compared with analysts' expectations for a increase of 4.1 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported on Tuesday. Official inventory data are expected at 1430 GMT this afternoon.

Meanwhile, China saw its economic growth slow to 1.3 percent between January and March on a quarterly basis after seasonal adjustments, compared with growth of 1.5 percent in the previous three months.

March factory output rose 5.6 percent from a year earlier, below the 6.9 percent seen in a Reuters poll and its lowest level since the global financial crisis in 2008.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore; editing by Jason Neely)

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