As of 12:00 Beijing time, the November contract price of Brent crude oil on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) was US$75.02 per barrel, up 53 cents from the settlement price on September 20. The contract closed down 39 cents per barrel on the same day.

The November contract price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) was $71.55 per barrel, up 55 cents from the settlement price on September 20. The contract closed down 16 cents per barrel on the same day.

Tensions in the Middle East escalated on September 20 when Israel said it had "eliminated" a senior member of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in an airstrike in a southern suburb of Beirut. The strike was the latest in a series of incidents that rocked the Lebanese capital last week. A series of deadly electronic pager explosions took place on September 17, followed 24 hours later by a second round of explosions targeting other wireless communications equipment, including walkie-talkies.

Libya is still exporting crude despite the regime in eastern Libya imposing a blockade on oil fields and terminals nearly a month ago. However, significant reductions in loadings have prompted major European customers to turn to alternatives.

According to Argus tracking data, Libya exported about 389,000 barrels per day of crude oil from September 1 to 19, a sharp drop from 932,000 barrels per day in the same period of August. At that time, Libya's crude oil production was close to 1 million barrels per day and had not yet been affected by the blockade. Assuming that Libya retains some of its crude oil for domestic refining and power generation, current production may be close to 500,000 barrels per day, higher than Argus' previous estimate of about 300,000 barrels per day.

Argentina plans to add 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of global crude supply over the next decade after decades of sluggish investment and repeated failed starts. “We are in a race with the world” to grab market share before other frontier markets come online and demand for crude eventually falls, said Rolando Figuero, governor of Argentina’s oil-rich Neuquen province, home to the country’s most promising Vaca Muerta basin.

The government estimates that production in Vaca Muerta alone could rise from about 390,000 bpd today to more than 1 million bpd by 2030. Only 33% of the Vaca Muerta area has been granted concessions, and just 8% is producing, according to Figuero. Argentina’s total crude production in July was nearly 683,000 bpd, a 20-year high, but the country exports only about 20% of that output.

(The above content comes from the latest views of Argus, an independent international energy and commodity price assessment agency)

The article is forwarded from: Jinshi Data