The catalyst that moved oil prices higher over the past two days, and which had overriden the "bad news" from the Doha talks failure, was the Kuwait oil workers strike announced over the weekend and which resulted in up to 1.6mmb/d in production being taken offline. As of moments ago, however, according to Kuwait's Aljarida press website, the strike appears to be over.
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— ??????? (@aljarida) April 19, 2016
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— ??????? (@aljarida) April 19, 2016
Google Translated:
Urgent | News about the decline of Union oil unions on strike and return employees to work tomorrow and enter into negotiations with the Government after the cessation of the strike.
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Confirmation of the news "newspaper"/oil Union strike and declared all employees to work
Oil may have ignored the bigger than expected API crude inventory build this afternoon, but will the algos also be able to ignore this latest development as Kuwait ramps up to full production in days?