Kevin Norrish Market Quotations

People were expecting builds across the board. On that basis the market reaction that we have had is not surprising...It looks like product strength has the potential to return.

If it weren't for the market's focus on short-term inventory data, the market would be a lot higher. We're retracing, even if the move upwards was not as big as it could have been.

Paradoxically, the price strength of the past couple of days makes a production cut ... less likely, ... If OPEC does cut production it will be reacting to perceived weakness in market fundamentals later on this year.

With plenty of crude oil available to the market at present and some OPEC members signaling that lower oil prices may be acceptable to the group, the stage may well be set for further tests of support over the coming weeks.

There's still going to be concern about potential hurricanes in the market for a few months. Crude output and refining are so tightly stretched that you don't need a big disruption to put the system under a lot of pressure.

Oil prices have fallen since the release of worse than expected US oil inventory figures on Wednesday but the potential for the Iranian situation to worsen during the course of the IAEA meeting currently underway is keeping oil market participants wary.

It's only a matter of time before geopolitical developments give the market another sharp tug. The chances of a benign settlement in coming months over the Iranian nuclear issue have receded in recent weeks.