"Rather than talking about capping oil production as it was planning to do at the end of September, OPEC would be better advised to think about reversing the production growth of recent months".
- Carsten Fritsch, Commerzbank
US import prices dropped unexpectedly last month amid lower petroleum and food prices, official data revealed on Wednesday. According to the Department of Labor, import prices fell 0.2% on a monthly basis in August, compared to the preceding month's unrevised gain of 0.1%, whereas market analysts penciled in a decline of 0.1% in the reported month. Moreover, that was the first monthly fall since February. Lower oil prices as well as the strong US dollar put downward pressure on the price of imports last month. August's decline in import prices was led by a monthly fall in the cost of imported communications equipment, which dropped 1.0%. On the positive side, the price of imports from Japan jumped 0.3% in the reported month, posting the largest increase since August 2011. The cost of imported petroleum fell 2.8% in August, following the previous month's decrease of 3.6%. Excluding petroleum, import prices remained unchanged after rising 0.5% in July. Other data released by the US Energy Information Administration on the same day showed that crude oil inventories fell 0.6 million barrels in the week ended September 9, following the 14.5 million barrel drop seen in the previous seven days and surpassing the 2.8 million barrel gain forecast.
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