Crude oil prices are getting support from the most advanced weekly US government inventory report and fiscal stimulus beliefs. With countries globally rolling out their COVID-19 vaccines, investors are confident that global demand will proceed to grow in the months to come.
March West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures rose $1.03, or 1.88%, to $55.76 per barrel at 14:41 GMT on Wednesday. US crude oil prices had exceeded $56 before the announcement of the government report. It has been an excellent start of 2021 for oil prices, with WTI contracts rising more than 15% to start the year.
April Brent crude futures raised $1.21, or 2.11%, to $58.67 per barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. Brent prices have been off to a roaring origin in 2021, rallying more than 13% in the calendar year’s first few weeks.
As stated by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), domestic inventories decreased 994,000 barrels for the week ending January 29. The market had pencilled besides of 446,000 barrels.
Crude supplies at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage facility dived 1.517 million barrels. Gasoline stocks rose 4.466 million barrels, while distillate inventories dropped by 9,000 barrels.
On Friday, Baker Hughes will publish its latest number of oil and gas rigs in the US. The chances of the oil rig count exceeding 300 for the first time since the spring of last year are high since the recent reading rebounded to 295.
Market analysts are watching the state of fiscal stimulus negotiations.
Last month, President Joe Biden drew a $1.9 trillion package. This week, Republicans countered with a $600 billion plan. But with Democrats controlling the House and Senate, it is more than possible that Congress will move forward with a $1.4 trillion spending bill.
Financial markets are noticing improvements in the US regarding the coronavirus public health crisis. Since the spring of 2021, new infections have been coming down, falling from a seven-day average of higher than 195,000 on January 1 to around 141,000 on February 2. In sum, the US has reported 26.5 million cases, with a death toll of 447,000.
As stated by the Bloomberg coronavirus vaccine tracker, 33.7 million doses have been delivered, averaging 1.32 million doses per day.
In other energy commodities, March natural gas futures fell $0.048, or 1.69%, to $2.797 per million British thermal units (BTU). March gasoline futures picked up $0.0398, or 2.46%, to $1.6558 a gallon. March heating oil futures turned from $0.0257, or 1.53%, to $1.7003 per gallon.
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