Oil steady

LONDON. — Oil prices steadied just below twoyear highs yesterday supported by supply cuts by major exporters, but analysts said the market could be vulnerable to a sell-off after several months of gains.

Prices have been supported by moves led by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia to limit supplies in order to tighten the market.

OPEC will discuss output at a meeting on November 30, 2017 and is expected to extend the limits beyond their expiry in March 2018.

“With the OPEC/non-OPEC deal extension beyond March 2018 a certainty, prices may become stronger and temporarily reach the $65-$70 per barrel range in 2018,” said energy consultancy FGE.

Despite this, some analysts say the price rally of the past months may have run its course, at least for now.

“As we get into 2018 and 2019, more oil is coming onto the market, a lot of it from US tight oil,” said Simon Flowers, chief analyst at Wood Mackenzie energy consultancy.

“So this (rally) will prove quite short-lived and we’ll see the price back into $50-$55 a barrel over the next year or two.” US crude stockpiles C-STK-T-EIA rose 2,2 million barrels in the week to Nov. 3, to 457.14 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

U.S. crude production C-OUT-T-EIA rose 67,000 barrels per day to 9,62 million bpd, the highest for decades.