Kuwait cuts output by 130,000 barrels a day

Baku. 3 January. REPORT.AZ/ Futures rose as much as 0.9 percent in New York after increasing 45 percent last year. 

OPEC member Kuwait has cut output by 130,000 barrels a day to about 2.75 million a day, Al-Anba newspaper reported, citing Kuwait Oil Company Chief Executive Officer Jamal Jaafer. 

Drillers targeting crude in the U.S. added active rigs for a ninth week, boosting the number to the highest in about a year, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. on Friday.

Oil climbed for the first time in three years in 2016 as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and 11 nations from outside the group agreed on an output cut plan, effective Jan. 1, to reduce bloated global inventories. In the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer, crude stockpiles remain at the highest seasonal level in more than three decades.

“It’s understood that countries like Kuwait, who are close to Saudi Arabia, are expected to diligently implement the output cuts, but it’s those nations such as Iraq and Russia that are the ones the market is mostly concerned about,” said Hong Sung Ki, a Seoul-based commodities analyst at Samsung Futures Inc. “Once oil reaches $60 a barrel, increasing rigs in the U.S. will be the biggest factor that will limit oil from rising further.”

West Texas Intermediate for February delivery gained as much as 48 cents to $54.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $54.03 at 2:40 p.m. in Singapore. There was no trading Monday because of the New Year holiday. Total volume traded was about 42 percent below the 100-day average.