RIYADH: Oil prices slipped on Tuesday ahead of data from the American Petroleum Institute which will shed light on US appetite for fuel during the summer driving season.
Brent crude futures were down 98 cents, or 1.32 percent, at $73.77 a barrel at 1:20 p.m. Saudi time, while US West Texas Intermediate futures fell 88 cents, or 1.27, to $68.49 a barrel, erasing some earlier gains.
US inventory data from the API is due later on Tuesday, followed by government data on Wednesday.
A clash between Moscow and Russian mercenary group Wagner was averted on Saturday after the heavily armed mercenaries withdrew from the southern city of Rostov under a deal that halted their rapid advance on the capital.
Oil fell about 3.6 percent last week on worries that further interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve could sap demand as China’s economic recovery disappointed investors.
Petronas expects domestic oil and gas output to peak by 2024
Malaysia’s state energy firm Petronas sees its domestic oil and gas production peaking at about 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2024, its exploration executives said on Tuesday.
About 60-70 percent of its production is natural gas and will remain so going forward, Adif Zulkifli, executive vice president and CEO upstream, said at the Energy Asia conference.
“We continue to look for more gas portfolio, but of course, there is a commitment in Malaysia. I think we need to continue to do some oil exploration to fill up our refineries,” he added.
According to Mohamed Firouz Asnan, senior vice president of Petronas, the company also aims to expand its overseas portfolio to 700,000 boepd by 2024 as it ramps up output from its Canada liquified natural gas joint venture.
He said the combined 2.7 million boepd of domestic and overseas production will be maintained until 2030.
In its fourth-quarter earnings announcement, Petronas recorded an average production of 2.4 million boepd in 2022, including domestic and overseas output.
The company also owns 25 percent of the 14 million metric tons per year LNG Canada project in Kitimat, British Columbia, led by Shell.
Guyana is not interested in joining OPEC
Nascent oil producer Guyana is not interested in joining the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Guyanese Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said on Monday, as the South American country looks to boost production and attract new operators.
Guyana, one of the fastest-growing crude-oil producers in the world since it began producing oil commercially in 2019, has been invited to attend OPEC’s international seminar in July, Jagdeo said, but there was no invitation to join the cartel.
“We were not formally invited to join OPEC. That is not something we are interested in. We have been invited, however, to participate in OPEC meetings,” Jagdeo told Reuters.
The Ministry of Natural Resources said the country was invited to attend the July meeting in Vienna and participate in a ministerial panel on diversifying energy economies.
(With input from Reuters)
