As of 12:00 Beijing time, the ICE Brent crude oil futures contract for August was $82.29 per barrel, up 37 cents from June 11's settlement price and up 29 cents at the close of the contract that day. The price of the New York Mercantile Exchange's July crude oil contract was $78.36 per barrel, up 46 cents from June 11's settlement and up 16 cents at the close of the contract that day.

OPEC confirmed its forecast for global oil supply and demand in 2024 and 2025 in its latest report. According to its latest monthly oil market report, the organization expects demand to increase by 2.25 million barrels per day to 104.46 million barrels per day in 2024, and to further increase by 1.85 million barrels per day to 106.31 million barrels per day next year. For this year's forecast, the decline in demand in the first and second quarters of OECD countries, Latin America and Africa was offset by better-than-expected consumption in China, the Middle East and India.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration raised its forecast for U.S. crude oil production in 2024, expecting production to accelerate after a slower-than-expected start to the year. In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook on June 11, the agency said domestic petroleum and other liquid fuel production would average 13.24 million barrels per day in 2024. Due to the extension of OPEC+ production cuts, the global 2024 production forecast was lowered by 160,000 barrels per day to 102.6 million barrels per day. The global crude oil consumption forecast for 2024 was raised to 103 million barrels per day, an increase of 160,000 barrels per day from the previous forecast. Global consumption is expected to increase to 104.5 million barrels per day next year, an increase of 24,000 barrels per day from the previous forecast.

Market participants are awaiting the latest weekly report on U.S. crude inventories from the Energy Information Administration on June 12, while also monitoring changes in inventory along the U.S. Gulf Coast. According to AlphaBBL's oil analysis, key crude oil inventories at Texas's Nederland and West Texas ports rose to a five-week high in the week ending June 7, while inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma, fell to a six-week low.

Ship-to-ship transfers of Russian crude oil in the Mediterranean have increased, possibly due to market changes since the Russia-Ukraine conflict. According to Agus tracking, the large crude oil tanker Rolin, which carried about 2.2 million barrels of crude oil, has left the Mediterranean and is heading for Singapore.

The Federal Reserve is expected to maintain its target rate at 5.25-5.5% at its upcoming meeting, the highest level in 23 years, and reiterate the need to see more evidence that inflation is slowing to its 2% target before starting to cut interest rates. Investors are closely watching the Fed's latest economic forecasts to see if policymakers are now predicting one or two interest rate cuts this year. The latest Fed forecast in March called for three 0.25 percentage point interest rate cuts, while the futures market now expects two rate cuts as economic data have generally exceeded expectations.

(The above content is from Argus, an independent international energy and commodity price assessment agency)