(New York) Oil prices remained on the upside on Wednesday, buoyed by renewed risk appetite after a welcome US inflation gauge amid tighter supply.
The price of a barrel of Brent North Sea oil for September delivery rose 0.89% to close at $80.11.
As for the barrel of American West Texas Intermediate (WTI), with maturity in August, it took 1.22%, to 75.75 dollars.
For José Torres, of Interactive Brokers, “the return of risk appetite and expectations of a soft landing (of the American economy) have spread to the energy markets”.
Inflation stood at 3% year on year in June in the United States, lower than the 3.1% expected by economists, according to figures released on Wednesday.
This indicator is in addition to the US employment report, published on Friday, which showed a slowdown in job creation, but an unemployment rate still historically low.
These two elements support, for many investors, the thesis of a limited downturn in the American economy.
The deceleration in inflation also weighed on the dollar, a development favorable to crude oil prices which are denominated in greenbacks in the majority of global transactions.
For Craig Erlam, of Oanda, these reassuring elements on demand add to tensions on supply, following the reduction by Saudi Arabia of its production since the beginning of July, to the tune of one million barrels per month. day.
The other heavyweight of the OPEC+ cartel (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies of the OPEC+ agreement), Russia, has also pledged to cut its exports by 500,000 barrels per day in the month of august.
The combination of these factors caused operators to ignore the weekly report from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), which showed an unexpected increase of 5.9 million barrels in commercial inventories in the States. -United.
This data should be put into perspective due to a major statistical adjustment, which led the EIA to add 9.9 million barrels to the quantities arriving on the American market during the week ended July 7.
This statistical correction is often the result of a recovery in figures from previous periods and is decorrelated from last week’s activity.
For Stephen Schork, of Schork Group, the market has mainly paid attention to the drop in inventories in Cushing (Oklahoma), the main delivery point for WTI in the United States.
The jump in the utilization rate at US refineries, to 93.7%, from 91.1% the previous week, was also welcomed.
“The market is on a roll and today’s report has done nothing to calm it down,” concluded Stephen Schork.