Benchmark oil prices are moderately rising on Friday morning after rising in the last hours of trading the day before.
The price of June futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange at 8:01 a.m. is $89.35 per barrel, which is $0.34 (0.38%) higher than at the close of the previous session. On Thursday, these contracts rose in price by $0.99 (1.1%) to $89.01 per barrel.
Quotations for June futures for WTI in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) by this time increased by $0.29 (0.35%) to $83.86 per barrel. At the end of the previous session, the contract rose by $0.76 (0.9%) to $83.57 per barrel.
For most of the last session, oil was trading in the red, managing to break even at the very end of trading. Such fluctuations were caused by low trading volume, Manish Raj, managing director of Velandera Energy Partners, told MarketWatch. “Too many investors have played the downside, and now they are trying to close their positions,” he said.
A day earlier, the U.S. Department of Energy reported that commercial oil reserves in the country fell by 6.368 million barrels last week. The drop was the largest since January, and the decline was recorded for the first time in five weeks. Despite this, oil prices declined slightly on Wednesday.
“The bulls are probably very upset by the market’s reaction to the larger-than-expected drop in oil inventories,” analysts at brokerage Zaner said.
