On September 2, the U.S. WTI crude oil futures market price fell, with the settlement price of main contracts at $41.51/barrel, down $1.25. Brent crude oil futures market price fell, the main contract settlement price to 44.43 U.S. dollars / barrel, down 1.15 dollars. Oil prices fell sharply on Wednesday, with WTI down nearly 3%, reversing the early trading trend, mainly due to lower US gasoline demand last week and market signals of OPEC + easing production cuts.

Despite the overall positive performance of the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) crude oil inventory data on Wednesday, there were still risks on the demand side. U.S. crude oil inventories, gasoline and distillate stocks fell last week, with U.S. crude oil inventories falling by 9.4 million barrels to 498.4 million barrels, according to a report released by the EIA on Wednesday. Last week, most of the US coastal oil and gas production facilities and capacity shut down before Hurricane Lara hit, with a record 1.1 million B / D to 9.7 million B / D, the lowest level since January 2018. The positive inventory data also curbed the decline in oil prices.

At present, more attention has been paid to the recovery of demand. At present, there is still a lot of pressure. Gasoline demand fell last week from the previous week, with data showing that gasoline demand fell to 8.78 million B / D from 9.16 million B / D in the previous week. In addition, other relevant data are not optimistic. From the U.S. employment data, the growth of private jobs in the United States was lower than expected for the second consecutive month, which further strengthened the market’s concern about the outbreak lasting for a longer time.

In addition, according to market news, the scale of OPEC + production reduction is questionable. The Iraqi side has said that it needs to delay two months to reach the designated production reduction target. Moreover, according to the survey results of some institutions, OPEC’s oil production in August increased by 950000 barrels / day to 2427 million barrels / day compared with the previous month, which was 400000 barrels / day more than the results published by OPEC. The main reason is that with the gradual recovery of the global economy, oil production has been gradually recovered Demand also rose, with the group and its allies cutting back on previous record production cuts, which led to OPEC oil production increasing for the second month in a row.

From the perspective of business associations, the oil market is in a complex environment of multiple and short space. Among them, the supply side has the advantage of continuous decline of crude oil inventory in the United States, and there is also a negative effect of OPEC + oil producing countries relaxing production reduction expectations. In addition, the demand side has been boosted by the gradual recovery of major European and American economies, as well as uncertainty in the future under the impact of the current epidemic. Generally speaking, oil prices may continue to fluctuate in the near future.