OIL: Oil End of Day Summary: Crude Climbs

WTI is headed for its highest close since Sep. 5. Support comes from a weaker USD and better risk sentiment. Crude has continued its rebound after Brent reached a low of $68.68/bbl earlier this week.

• WTI OCT 24 up 2.5% at 68.99$/bbl
• US JOBLESS CLAIMS +2K TO 230K IN SEP 07 WK
• Rapidly slowing Chinese consumption is driving down global oil demand growth according to the IEA in its latest monthly report. "The chief driver of this downturn is a rapidly slowing China," the IEA said.
• The IEA forecasts this year's global demand to grow by 903,000 bpd from 970,000 bpd in its prior report – the second downward revision in 2 months.
• The IEA pointed towards a rapid China slowdown as the chief driver of its second successive demand growth revision for 2024.
• Hurricane Francine likely disrupted 1.5m bbl of Gulf of Mexico production, according to UBS estimates, cited by Reuters. This will likely reduce the region’s monthly production by 50k b/d.
• Shell said on Thursday that hurricane Francine had caused downstream production issues at Appomattox, Mars, Vito, Ursa, and Olympus fields in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Saudi Aramco will supply about 44mbbl of crude oil to China in October, according to Bloomberg up from about 43mbbls in September.
• India is in favour of OPEC raising production to keep oil prices in check, according to India Oil Secretary Pankaj Jain.
• UBS expects oil prices to move back above $80/bbl in the coming months on falling inventories.
• Tanker freight rates are expected to rise in Q4 and into Q1 on recovering dirty tanker demand, APPEC delegates said, cited by Argus.