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2026-09-17 09:28:10
[Oil Prices Continue to Fall as Saudi Arabia's Oman Transshipment Eases Supply Concerns] 1. International oil prices continued to decline in early Asian trading on Thursday, extending the previous day's losses. Reports indicated that Saudi Arabia was transshipping more crude oil through Oman, easing market concerns about supply disruptions in the Middle East. Brent crude futures fell as much as 1.3% to $104.18 per barrel on Thursday, while WTI crude futures fell as much as 1.33% to $101.07 per barrel. Both contracts fell by about $3 on Wednesday. 2. Hiroyuki Kikukawa, chief strategist at Nissan Securities Investment, said that the news of Saudi Arabia's transshipment of crude oil through Oman slightly eased concerns about supply tightness. Meanwhile, market expectations that tensions in the Middle East might ease ahead of next week's US-China summit also limited oil price gains. Sources indicated that Saudi Arabia is supplying more crude oil to Asian refiners via ship-to-ship transshipment off the coast of Sohar port in Oman. 3. Despite the decline in oil prices, concerns about an escalation of conflict in the Middle East remain. The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels said on Wednesday that Saudi warplanes were heavily bombing Yemen, while the group launched drones and missiles at Saudi cities. This continued to support oil prices. Regarding inventory changes, data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed that U.S. crude oil inventories fell by 640,000 barrels to 423.4 million barrels in the week ending September 11, while analysts had previously expected a decrease of 1.6 million barrels.
