OPEC insists no production quota hikes before September

Despite increasing calls for it to raise production quotas, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has again said, though its secretary-general, that there is sufficient oil on the market. Abdalla El-Badri blamed refinery problems in the United States and a number of geopolitical conflicts for rising prices.

He also said that there would be no meeting of OPEC to discuss quotas until its next scheduled meeting in September. He did say that production quotas could go up later in the year, but only of crude oil inventories continued to decline and prices continued to rise.

In addition to the new comments from OPEC, the temporary closure of a shipping terminal that sends out 650,000 barrels of oil a day in Oman due to a cyclone held prices higher in London, where Brent crude added 17 cents to $70.57 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange. However, West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery was down by 63 cents in mid-afternoon trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange, to $65.58 per barrel.

Nymex July gasoline was also lower, dropping 4 cents to $2.20 per gallon, while heating oil held steady at $1.97 per gallon. Natural gas, meanwhile, dropped 13 cents to trade at $8.06 per million British thermal units.