Oil quotations grew steadily on Friday amid publication of data on energy reserves in the U.S., which showed a decline of gasoline and distillate reserves in the country last week.
The value of March futures on Brent crude oil on London’s ICE Futures Exchange was $79.50 per barrel by 7:05 a.m. KSC on Friday. It was $0.81 (1.03%) above the previous session’s close price. At the end of trading on Thursday those contracts grew by $0.85 (1.09%) up to $78.69 per barrel.
The price of WTI futures for February at electronic trades of NYMEX grew by that time by $0.79, to $74.46 per barrel. By closing of previous trades the cost of those contracts grew by $0.83 (1.14%) to $73.67 per barrel.
Commercial oil inventories in the U.S. rose 1.69 million barrels to 420.65 million barrels last week, according to a weekly report from the nation’s Energy Department.
Commercial gasoline inventories fell by 346,000 barrels to 222.66 million barrels.
Commercial distillate stocks decreased by 1.43 million barrels to 118.78 million barrels.
Experts were expecting a 1.5 mln barrel increase of oil reserves, a 1 mln barrel decrease of gasoline reserves and a 1.17 mln barrel decrease of distillate reserves.
Since the beginning of the week oil prices fell by about 7% due to an increase in COVID-19 disease in China, which clouds the short-term outlook for oil demand in that country.
In turn, hawkish signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) on the future direction of monetary policy are increasing concerns about a potential recession, writes Trading Economics.
