Oil prices accumulated a more than 1-percent decline this week, pressured by U.S. production growth, despite the variety of bullish demand forecasts and data about tightening global supply. A record-high number of long positions on Brent and WTI also helped fuel a concern about the immediate future of benchmark prices. The ratio of long to short positions on Brent and WTI, Reuters’ John Kemp noted in his latest column, now stands at 10:1, compared with 1.60:1 at end-June 2017. The Energy Information Administration reported yesterday that overall oil production in the Untied States had hit 9.75 million barrels daily last week, up by 258,000 bpd from the previous week and a whopping 806,000 bpd from a year earlier. At this rate of weekly growth, U.S. drillers could hit the 10-million-bpd mark much sooner than expected unless they deliberately decide to rein in production to stop prices from falling. As […]