Oil weakens as Saudi sees no need for oil summit to defend prices

By Meeyoung Cho
SEOUL, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Crude oil prices dipped on Friday
after news top oil exporter Saudi Arabia sees no need for a
summit of producing countries' heads of state to defend prices,
partly offsetting the previous session's strong rally on bullish
gasoline demand.
The front-month October contract for Brent LCOc1 , the
global oil benchmark, shed 20 cents to $48.69 a barrel as of
0034 GMT after it previously settled up $1.31, or 2.8 percent,
at $48.89 a barrel.
The U.S. crude October contract CLc1 also lost 29 cents to
$45.63 a barrel after it settled up $1.77, or 4 percent, at
$45.92 a barrel.
Saudi believes such a summit by oil producers would fail to
produce concrete action toward defending oil prices, sources
familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The comments followed
a meeting of Gulf Arab oil ministers with Qatar's emir in Doha,
at which a Venezuelan proposal for an OPEC and non-OPEC summit
was discussed.
Oil prices on Thursday rallied as U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA) data showed demand for gasoline over the
latest four-week period was up almost 4 percent from a year ago,
bullish for late-summer consumption of the motor fuel.
While crude inventories USOILC=ECI rose by 2.6 million
barrels to 458 million barrels in the past week, compared with
analysts' expectations for an increase of 933,000 barrels, crude
stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub USOICC=ECI fell
by 897,000 barrels to 56.41 million barrels, EIA said.
Russia's energy minister expects that cuts in global shale
oil production, which has been hard hit by lower oil prices,
will help stabilise the fragile oil market. Alexander Novak also
reaffirmed that Russia, one of the world's top oil producers,
would not cut its own production as it would lead only to a
short-term recovery with risks of subsequent slumps in
prices.
Asian shares rose on Friday thanks to gains on Wall Street,
while the dollar steadied after facing pressure from a rallying
yuan and U.S. data that offered no clarity on whether the
Federal Reserve might raise interest rates next week.