Due to the sluggish dollar last Thursday, oil had a minimal shift on its price, compensated by non-yielding high levels of U.S. stockpiles which are close to record its all-time highs.
According to traders, oil prices were moved by figures from the market intelligence company Genscape showing a build of about 2 million barrels in the week to March 14 at the Cushing, Oklahoma distribution mark from U.S. crude futures.
The OPEC and non-OPEC producers trim output from January 1 to scale down record stocks of crude. However an oil price rally after the agreement has been halted by figures showing continuously growing U.S. inventories.
The world’s largest oil consumer, the United States, showed a moderate slip in its outputs. However, the slip helped lift the price of oil in current session after they hobbled to three-month lows, according to this week’s data.
The U.S. crude stockpiles declined last week, the first major drop after nine weeks of increases, losing about 237,000 barrel from record highs according to U.S. Energy Information Administration report last Wednesday.
Brent crude oil lost 11 cents to $51.70 per barrel, recovering from Tuesday’s decline to $50.25. The price is still close to $7 below January’s post-deal peak of $58.37. Meanwhile the U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded 11 cents lower at $48.75 per barrel at Thursday’s close, hitting its three-month low on Tuesday.
Further support came from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday, after the Fed announced it would not accelerate plans for an interest rate hike, deteriorating the dollar against its opposing currencies and the agency said the oil market could be short by 500,000 barrels per day in the first half of this year.
For this moment OPEC still sticks to its pledge to cut about 1.2 million barrels per day in the first half of 2017, however traders have been upset as shares are persistently rising. The IEA said to investors that they have to patient as cuts take time to feed through.