Oil Prices Close Higher

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil futures edged upward for the third straight trading day.

The September WTI contract added 67 cents Monday to settle at $56.87 per barrel. It fluctuated within a range from $55.81 to $56.97 during the early week session.

September Brent futures settled at $63.71 per barrel, reflecting a 25-cent gain.

Both the WTI and Brent had been moving downward earlier Monday, noted Bloomberg in an article posted to Rigzone. The news service pointed out that crude oil was poised to hit its second down month for 2019 amid a pair of conflicting developments: the deployment of a U.K. warship to the Strait of Hormuz (bullish for oil) versus muted expectations regarding the outcome of resumed trade talks between the United States and China (bearish).

The movement of the reformulated gasoline (RBOB) price often follows the pattern of the crude oil benchmarks, but such was not the case Monday. August RBOB lost one cent to end the day at $1.86 per gallon.

Also ending the day lower was Henry Hub natural gas for August delivery, which shed three cents to settle at $2.14.

“It continues to be a remarkably cheap fuel source,” Tom McNulty, Houston-based managing director with Great American Group, said of natural gas.

McNulty remarked that the extent of inexpensive U.S.-sourced natural gas is quickly growing worldwide. He pointed out the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently moved the United States up into third place among the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG)-exporting countries – a reflection of how quickly U.S. LNG export facilities have begun operations.

“The U.S. averaged 4.2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfd), exported, from January to May of this year,” said McNulty. “Another phase of new projects should boost this number by 5 to 6 Bcfd in the next seven to 10 years.”

In another growth-related market development, Rystad Energy has reported that U.S. hydraulic fracturing operations rebounded in June – a departure from the lackluster trend for February to May. In addition, the Norway-based firm expects the uptick to continue through the second half of this year.