Oil futures rose Monday, ending July on a positive note as the U.S. crude benchmark posted its largest monthly rise since January 2022. Brent crude, the global benchmark, saw its largest monthly jump since May of last year.
Price action
-
West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery
CL00,
-0.99% CL.1,
-0.99% CLU23,
-0.99%
rose $1.22, or 1.5%, to finish at $81.80 barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The U.S. benchmark jumped 15.8% in July, ending Monday at its highest since April 14, 2022. -
September Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 57 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $85.56 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, booking a 14.2% monthly rise. The September contract expired Monday. October Brent
BRN00,
-0.98% BRNV23,
-0.98% ,
the most actively traded contract, rose $1.02, or 1.2%, to end at $85.43 a barrel. -
August gasoline
RBQ23
fell 0.9% to end at $2.929 a gallon, leaving it with an 11.2% July jump. August heating oil
HOQ23,
+1.54%
rose 1.1% to finish at $2.991 a gallon, rising 22.2% in July. Gasoline and heating oil each saw their largest monthly increases since October. -
September natural gas
NGU23,
-3.23%
fell 0.2% to close at $2.634 per million British thermal units, leaving it down 5.9% in July.
Market drivers
Both WTI and Brent have seen a string of five straight weekly gains, with WTI turning positive on the year, while Brent continues to nurse a year-to-date loss of around 1%.
Crude has found its footing on expectations the market will move into deficit in the second half, aided by supply cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia. Analysts said investors will be eager to see if Saudi Arabia extends a voluntary, additional production cut of 1 million barrels a day that began in July through September.
Meanwhile, resilient economic data helped boost crude and gasoline futures last week, with the latter hitting 2023 highs.
“While the world continues to look to the U.S. to counter some of the output cuts by Russia and Saudi Arabia, rig activity suggests U.S. producers are in no hurry to fill the gap, clearing a path for steady undersupply over the near term,” said Robbie Fraser, manager of global research and analytics at Schneider Electric, in a Monday note.
“Additionally, while recession fears have hardly disappeared, most economist polls and measures of consumer confidence point to an improving situation, which generally triggers support for discretionary demand in categories like gasoline and jet fuel,” he wrote.
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