U.S. oil prices settled with a loss of a nickel on Wednesday, mostly recovering from the dive they took in the wake of a weekly report that showed an unexpected climb in gasoline inventories and a sizable increase in stockpiles at the futures delivery hub in Oklahoma.
Shortly before the close of oil trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, news that the Federal Reserve will be patient in raising interest rates appeared to pressure the dollar and help dollar-denominated oil prices recoup lost ground. The EIA report had also revealed a seventh straight weekly decline in crude supplies and a decrease in weekly oil production. July crude fell 5 cents to settle at $59.92 a barrel on Nymex.
It was trading at $61.13 before the supply data and touched lows under $59 after them. A price recovery in the last half-hour of trading coincided with the Fed statement. August Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell 17 cents, or 0.3%, to $63.87 a barrel, also paring losses. The Nymex “rally into the close was undoubtedly the result of the knee-jerk selloff” in the U.S. dollar after the Fed announcement, said Tyler Richey, co-editor of the 7:00’s Report. “A near 1% drop in the dollar index within 1 hour will almost always provide some support for oil and the broader commodity space,” he said.
Early Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a decline of 2.7 million barrels in crude supplies for the week ended June 12. EIA data have now shown seven straight weeks of falling supplies. Analysts polled by Platts forecast a crude-stock fall of 2.4 million barrels, Total domestic production fell 21,000 barrels a day from a week earlier, to 9.59 million barrels a day. But stockpiles at the Nymex futures delivery hub of Cushing, Okla. climbed by 112,000 barrels. The biggest surprise was the build at Cushing, said John Macaluso, an analyst at Tyche Capital Advisors. “A build in Cushing could be a telling sign of the end of a run of consecutive draws in inventories.” The EIA data also showed that gasoline supplies unexpectedly climbed by 500,000 barrels, while distillate stockpiles rose by a less-than-expected 100,000 barrels last week.