“For Saudi Arabia, cutting oil shipments into the U.S. is the quickest way to telegraph to the wider market that it’s tightening supply. The U.S. government is alone among major oil-consuming nations in publishing weekly data on crude stocks and imports, which carries enormous influence among oil traders. Those figures will be released later on Wednesday.”
-Brian Wingfield and Sheela Tobben in Bloomberg examine the strategy behind Saudi crude exports to the United States. Tracking data shows they fell to 177,000 barrels a day in August, the lowest since early 2017. [Bloomberg]
