US WTI crude oil futures pared gains on Wednesday after a U.S. official said the country was continuing to consider tools to manage energy prices, and as government data pointed to weaker gasoline demand.
WTI U.S. crude futures were trading $1.3, or 2.02%, higher at $67.51 a barrel at 12:04 p.m. ET (1619 GMT), after paring some gains immediately after the weekly government stock data. They were up as much as 4% earlier in the session.
Oil prices were also impacted by a new coronavirus variant triggering fresh travel restrictions that could dampen oil demand and after an OPEC+ document showed the group forecasting a bigger oil surplus in the new year than previously thought. read more
Global benchmark Brent crude was up $1.5, or 2.3%, at $71.75 a barrel. U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary said the Biden administration could adjust the timing of its planned release of strategic crude oil stockpiles if global energy prices drop substantially.
U.S. gasoline stocks (USOILG=ECI) rose 4 million barrels last week to 215.4 million barrels, government data showed, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for 29,000-barrel rise. Distillate stockpiles (USOILD=ECI) increased 2.2 million barrels to 123.9 million barrels, versus expectations for a 462,000-barrel build.
Crude inventories (USOILC=ECI) fell 910,000 barrels in the week, data showed, compared with forecasts for a 1.2 million-barrel drop.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries concluded its meeting on Wednesday without a decision on whether to release more oil into the market.
The OPEC+ alliance, which includes Russia and other producers, will likely take a policy decision on Thursday. Reports and analysts suggested that expectations were growing that the group will take a pause due to the threat from a new virus variant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US WTI crude oil futures pared gains on Wednesday after a U.S. official said the country was continuing to consider tools to manage energy prices, and as government data pointed to weaker gasoline demand.WTI U.S. crude futures were trading $1.3, or 2.02%, higher at $67.51 a barrel at 12:04 p.m. ET (1619 GMT), after paring …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":46216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,36],"tags":[8107,6846,8137,8186,7004,7869,8187],"class_list":["post-55997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-commodities-news","category-market-updates","tag-fuel-prices","tag-oil","tag-oil-demand","tag-oil-surplus","tag-opec-2","tag-stockpiles","tag-strategic-crude-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55997"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56029,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55997\/revisions\/56029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}