Oil prices continue to decline Wednesday morning after ending the previous session in the negative.
The price of July futures for Brent on London’s ICE Futures Exchange stood at $74.88 a barrel by 8:08 a.m., down $0.03 (0.04%) from the close of the previous session. Those contracts fell $0.32 (0.4%) to $74.91 a barrel on Monday.
The price of WTI futures for June crude oil at NYMEX fell by $0.07, to $70.79 per barrel. The day before contract prices dropped $0.25 (0.4%) to $70.86 per barrel.
The market participants are waiting for data on fuel reserves in the USA for the week that ended on May 12. They forecast a decrease of oil reserves by 0.9-1.3 mln barrels. The Energy Department will publish the official statistics at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), reserves rose by about 3.7 million barrels.
Earlier, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the country intends to start adding to its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) next month. According to Price Futures Group analyst Phil Flynn, such a move would likely consolidate support for quotations at $70 a barrel, the target price for the US.
In addition, restocking the U.S. will try to “calm down” Saudi Arabia, which, apparently, was dissatisfied with the lack of buying activity from Washington at a time when “the massive outflow of funds from bank deposits gave it a chance,” quoted Flynn to MarketWatch.
