The de facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries this month deepened its production cuts to 1 million barrels per day in response to benchmark prices that fell to below $72 a barrel this summer.
Also pushing up sour crudes are U.S. government purchases to restock its emergency reserves, production outages from Canadian wildfires, and worries about potential for Atlantic hurricane season to cut production of U.S. sour crude. U.S. Mars sour crude prices on Thursday of last week also traded at a $2 per barrel premium to U.S. crude futures at Cushing hub, its highest in three years. It traded at a premium to light, sweet WTI Midland at East Houston terminal, something rarely seen before.