Global oil prices settled down by nearly 4 percent today, to $45.25, after reports that OPEC nations were having a hard time agreeing on production cuts; an agreement would help curtail global oversupply and thus, raise oil prices.
OPEC members are scheduled to have their formal meeting tomorrow.
And while
US oil rig counts continue to see gains (for the week ending Nov. 25, 2016, Baker Hughes reported the number of rotary rigs drilling for oil was up by three, to 474) the current rig count is still a far cry from its peak in 2014. Historical data from Baker Hughes shows that for the week ending Nov. 26, 2014, the number of
US rigs drilling for oil was recorded at 1,572.
“There’s still a lot of downsizing and adjusting,” one source said. “Even with imports, anything that’s coming in is already spoken for. You just can’t speculate in this market. Everyone is fighting for a piece of the same pie and that pie has gotten very very small in the past two years.”
In terms of current import pricing, that remains lateral week-on-week. The most recently heard offer pricing for import OCTG casing from Taiwan in the
US domestic market continues to trend at approximately $34.00 cwt. ($750/mt or $680/nt), DDP loaded truck in
US Gulf coast ports.