Oil prices seesawed on Thursday, supported by healthy global demand but at the same time held back by a relentless rise in U.S. production that is undermining efforts led by producer cartel OPEC to cut supplies and prop up markets. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were up by 9 cents cents to $61.05 a barrel by 0742 GMT. Brent crude futures LCOc1 were at $64.91 per barrel, near their previous close. Both benchmarks spent most of Asia’s trading hours either slightly below or above their previous closes.
Prices were receiving some support from healthy demand. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on Wednesday that oil consumption was expected to grow by 1.62 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018.But looming over markets has been a relentless climb in U.S. crude output C-OUT-T-EIA, which hit another record last week by rising to 10.38 million bpd, up by more than 23 percent since mid-2016. Commercial crude inventories C-STK-T-EIA were up by 5 million barrels, at 430.93 million barrels.