World oil prices continue to drop

World oil prices continue to fall on August 15 after the release of forecasts about the growth in U.S. oil production volume.

The price for October futures of Brent oil has decreased by 0.87 percent to $50.29 per barrel as of 11:50 (UTC + 4).

The price for September futures of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil dropped by 0.63 percent and stood at $47.29 per barrel.

The shale output in the US oil production regions is expected to increase by 117,000 barrels per day in September and reach 6.149 million barrels per day (mbd) as compared to 6.032 mbd in August, the country's Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Drilling Productivity Report.

Another factor dragging the oil prices down is the report about 173,000 barrels per day increase in total OPEC-14 crude oil production, which averaged 32.87 million barrels per day (b/d) in July.

Crude oil output increased mostly in Libya (+154,300 b/d), Nigeria (+34,300 b/d), and Saudi Arabia (+31,800 b/d), while production showed declines in Iraq (-33,100 b/d), Angola (-19,300 b/d) and Venezuela (15,800 b/d).

On May 25, OPEC member countries and non-OPEC parties, Azerbaijan, Kingdom of Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Sultanate of Oman, the Russian Federation, Republic of Sudan, and the Republic of South Sudan agreed to extend the production adjustments for a further period of nine months, with effect from July 1, 2017.

The reductions will be on the same terms as those agreed in November.

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