Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 1/8/21

Oil is heading for the longest run of weekly gains since October 2016 as global supplies tighten and on signs the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will extend output curbs past the end of March. Saudi Arabia on Thursday advised its nationals to leave Lebanon, fueling fears of a confrontation with Iran in a country long known for being a battleground for proxy wars in the Middle East. “Geopolitical risks have taken center stage in the oil market again,” said Jens Naervig Pedersen, senior analyst at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “The rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have raised concerns in the oil market of an imminent supply disruption.” Saudi Arabia said it plans to cut crude exports to all the regions it ships to next month. Shipments will fall by 120,000 barrels a day in December from November, a spokesman for the Energy Ministry said, without specifying what those levels would be. Bloomberg calculations from vessel-tracking data estimated flows in October at 6.989 million a day. Click Read More below for additional information.

Prices are being affected by “a bullish oil-inventory report” from the U.S., said Michael Poulsen, an analyst at Global Risk Management Ltd. U.S. storage dropped by 4.62 million barrels to 425.3 million barrels last week, while outbound shipments of crude expanded to a record, according to an Energy Information Administration report Wednesday. The EIA data also showed that American oil production rose to an unprecedented 10.5 million barrels a day, topping the 10 million-barrel level for a ninth week. Global markets from equities to oil recovered after investor optimism grew that the U.S. and China will step back from the brink of a trade war. Click Read More below for additional information.

American Dollar to Canadian Dollar = 0.798801; American Dollar to Chinese Yuan = 0.157767; American Dollar to Euro = 1.134769; American Dollar to Japanese Yen = 0.008787; American Dollar to Mexican Peso = 0.048892.