WTI down on NYMEX while Brent rises

West Texas Intermediate July contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange were down 7 cents to $54.62 per barrel on Friday, and in London July delivery IPE Brent rose 6 cents to $53.88.

The days prices were in reaction to a mixed bag of news related to crude oil production and demand. The president of OPEC insisted that crude oil supplies are plentiful and that continuing high prices are due to speculation. But the market continues to worry about interruptions in supply that could be caused by bad weather as the hurricane season sets in.

This is particularly true as the first named tropical storm caused several companies to evacuate non-essential personnel from their drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Meanwhile, The International Energy Agency released their Oil Market Report for May. The data contained in that report showed that OPEC oil supplies were down by 55,000 barrels per day on the month to 29.26 million barrels per day in consequence of lower output in Iraq, Venezuela, and the United Arab Emirates.

But the 10 members of OPEC bound by quotas pumped 27.6 million barrels per day, which is 100,000 barrels per day over OPEC’s stated production goal. World supply, however, was up 260,000 barrels per day to 84.6 million barrels per day in May. The IEA report also said demand growth continued to slow in China and Europe in May, but that demand growth was up in North America.