© Reuters.
Investing.com — Saudi Arabia and other oil producers can talk all they want about the so-called “demand” for oil. But the market isn’t buying it, sending global crude benchmark below $80 a barrel — the first time since July.
Crude prices settled at four-month lows after tumbling hard for a second day in a row. The selloff came as assurances by OPEC+ that all was well on the oil consumption front failed to calm a skittish market reacting partly to weak economic data out of top oil importer China, the loss of any war premium risk from the Israel-Hamas conflict and a stronger — the currency that oil trades on.
But more than all that on Wednesday was the absence of weekly US inventory numbers from the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, due to a reworking of its data gathering methodology. That raised questions on how well demand could have fared for the week ended Nov 3, especially after the American Petroleum Institute, or API, suggested in its own data that US crude inventories surged almost 12 million barrels last week, versus trade expectations for a draw of 300,000 barrels.
New York-traded , or WTI, crude for December delivery, settled…
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