Benchmark oil prices are little changed on Thursday morning after declines in the previous three sessions.
The price of October Brent futures on London’s ICE Futures exchange is at $83.2 per barrel by 8:09 a.m. Q4, down 1 cent (0.01%) from the previous session’s close. On Wednesday, these contracts fell in price by $0.82 (1%) – to $83.21 per barrel.
Quotes of futures for WTI crude oil for October at the electronic trading of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) by the specified time decreased by 5 cents (0.06%) and amounted to $78.84 per barrel. At the end of the last session they fell by $0.75 (0.9%) – to $78.89 per barrel.
The day before, Brent ended trading at the lowest since August 2, WTI – since July 26.
Commercial oil inventories in the U.S. last week decreased by 6.13 million barrels, according to the weekly report of the country’s Energy Department. Experts surveyed by Bloomberg expected a decrease in oil reserves by 3 million barrels.
Meanwhile, commercial reserves of gasoline increased by 1.47 million barrels, distillates – increased by 945 thousand barrels. Analysts predicted a decrease in gasoline reserves by 481 thousand barrels and an increase in distillate reserves by 698 thousand barrels.
Inventories at the Cushing terminal, where NYMEX-traded crude is stored, fell 3.13 million barrels after dropping 837,000 barrels a week earlier.
“The data pointed to a sharp drop in oil inventories overall and also at the Cushing terminal,” Tariq Zahir, managing partner at Tyche Capital Advisors, told MarketWatch. According to him, the decline in quotations observed in recent days may be replaced by growth amid production cuts in Saudi Arabia and storm activity in the Gulf of Mexico.
