Oil rebounded on Wednesday, snapping a three-day losing streak and gaining the most in one day in two and a half years. Futures traded higher through a surprise increase in weekly inventories and a trouncing in U.S. equities, driven by surprise weakness in December retail sales. Gasoline and natural-gas futures also rallied.
Light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February gained $2.59, or 5.6%, to settle at $48.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the largest one-day percentage gain since June 29, 2012. February Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $2.10, or 4.5%, to finish at $48.69 a barrel. That was also Brent’s largest one-day percentage increase since June 29, 2012. Brent had settled lower for the past four sessions. Crude oil’s late rebound could indicate prices are at or very near the bottom, and the sell off has run its course, speculated James Cordier, a portfolio manager with Optionsellers.com. “That’s based on the fact that we rallied despite the bad news,” he said.
Some of that bad news came from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which on Wednesday said U.S. crude supplies rose by 5.4 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 9. Analysts polled by Platts had expected supplies to fall by 400,000 barrels. Gasoline supplies rose 3.2 million barrels on the week, and supplies of distillates, which include heating oil, increased by 2.9 million, EIA said. The analysts polled by Platts had expected gasoline stockpiles to rise by 2.7 million barrels, and distillate stocks to increase by 1.9 million barrels.
Meanwhile, Nomura Securities was the latest bank to slash its oil price forecasts. It expects Brent crude to average $60 a barrel in 2015, down from its previous forecast of $85 a barrel. About half of the world’s oil-producing projects aren’t economical if oil prices remain below $50 a barrel and falling production levels will likely help restore the balance in oil markets by 2016, Gordon Kwan, Nomura’s head of oil research, said in a report.
Elsewhere in energy trading, gasoline for February rose 8 cents, or 6.5%, to settle at $1.3507 a gallon on Nymex. That was gasoline largest one-day percentage increase since July 30, 2009. February heating oil added 2 cents, or 1.4%, to $1.6552 a gallon on Nymex. That was heating oil’s largest one-day dollar and percentage gain since Dec. 23, 2014.