WTI, Brent crude oil futures rise in global market

The country’s export drive has pushed down Asian diesel oil prices in the Singapore market since July, which fell to the $52 range in late August, their lowest since March 2009.

World oil prices held firm on Monday in a positive start to the week, but the market remains beset with worries over abundant global oil supplies.

The Commerce Department is scheduled to release its new home sales report for September at 10 am ET.

“The strength in products is definitely helping crude”, Pete Donovan, broker at New York’s Liquidity Energy, said, referring to the near 3% rise in gasoline prices.

“Brent is continuing to trade at around $48 per barrel”, said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.

“Today, we have a consolidation in the price of oil”.

Investors await the outcome of this week’s two-day policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve, just days after China’s surprise fourth interest rate cut.

ANZ bank said it expected prices to remain low for the rest of this year and that speculators were cutting their bets on higher prices.

Suhail bin Mohammed al-Mazroui said OPEC, of which the UAE is a member, had agreed to continue following a market-driven strategy, meaning demand and supply, rather than intervention, would decide price levels. Likewise, the United States crude oil output was at 9.17 MMbpd (million barrels per day) for the week ending October 2, 2015, according to the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration).

Rising inventories as well as a mild winter expected for Europe and North America as a result of an El Nino weather event would likely lead to reduced refinery production and lower use of crude by refiners, it added.

Oil investment is already down 20 percent worldwide this year and another drop is likely in 2016, Birol told an energy conference in Singapore – marking the first time since the mid-1990s that spending has fallen for two straight years.

Morgan Stanley said it was sanguine about oil demand in a report on Monday.