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Oil futures rose more than 2% on Wednesday, continuing their rebound from year-to-date lows hit as global stocks tumbled, as U.S. crude stockpiles fell more than expected and traders remained nervous about the possibility of retaliatory measures. Iran launches air strikes on Israel.
In the week ended August 2, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories fell by 3.7 million barrels to 429.3 million barrels, a much larger than expected decline, falling for the sixth consecutive week and about 6% lower than the five-year average for the same period this year.
“The reality is that demand is stronger than people thought and overall supply is tighter,” Price Futures Group analyst Phil Flynn said, according to Reuters.
However, the EIA said gasoline inventories rose by 1.3 million barrels and distillate inventories by 900,000 barrels, with analysts having expected both figures to decline.
“The continuous decline in inventories to multi-month lows is responsible for the sharp increase in WTI spreads. [but] Gasoline and distillate construction [inventories] According to Dow Jones, Mizuho analyst Robert Yawger said this is particularly concerning considering that refinery utilization was only 90.5%, compared with 93.8% in the same period last year.
Chinese data showed daily crude oil imports fell to their lowest level since September 2022 in July, supporting a bearish demand view.
Front-month New York Commercial Crude Oil (CL1:COM) for September delivery has been completed +2.7% To $75.23/barrel, front month October Brent crude oil (CO1:COM) closed +2.4% to US$78.33/barrel.
ETF:(New York Stock Exchange: Use), (BNO), (UCO), (SCO), (USL), (DBO), (DRIP), (GUSH), (USOI)
Donald Trump says he will immediately replenish the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve if he becomes president in November, a move that could boost oil demand by hundreds of millions of barrels.
As of July 26, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve held 375 million barrels of oil, just over half of its production capacity and the lowest level since 1983. To restore the reserve to the level of the Trump presidency, the United States would need to purchase nearly 3 million barrels of oil. billion barrels of crude oil.
Trump said in an interview with Fox News that President Biden has been “using strategic reserves, which are used for military, war and very important things, and he’s using it to try to drive down the price of gasoline.”
In recent weeks, the United States has taken advantage of low oil prices to replenish its strategic petroleum reserves; the Energy Department said last week it had purchased an additional 4.65 million barrels of oil.
