United States Oil Fund (USO)

[eFinanceMarkets]

Crude eases on gains as G-7 meets Middle Eastern allies on Syria

After gains early in the week, crude is wobbly (but still positive) amid continuing uncertainty around the American missile strike in Syria and a Libyan oilfield shutdown, alongside rising shale oil production in the U.S.

The G-7 foreign ministers have sat down this morning with Middle East allies -- Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Qatar -- in a show of togetherness on the issue of Syria, and to help apply pressure to Russian president Vladimir Putin to break ties with Bashar al-Assad. Turkey is saying the Syrian government still has the capacity to use chemical weapons.

Libya's biggest oil field, Sharara, shut down yesterday just a week after reopening, and the country had to declare force majeure at its Zawiya terminal with the pipeline shut down. Sharara was pumping 200K barrels/day, and the country's production overall had just returned to about 700K bbl/day.

WTI futures are up 0.1% currently (to $53.12/barrel), with Brent Crude up 0.1% (to $56.03/bbl). RBOB gasoline is up 0.05%.