(New York) Oil prices fell on Wednesday, reacting to an unexpected increase in US crude inventories.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in May, fell 0.18% to $86.09.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery the same month, lost 0.33% to $81.35.
The drop in prices was, however, limited, as official data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) were ultimately less catastrophic for demand than those published earlier by the American Petroleum Institute (API). , explained Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates.
The EIA indicated on Wednesday that weekly commercial crude oil inventories in the United States increased by 3.2 million barrels for the week ended March 22. Analysts were betting on a decrease of one million barrels.
But on Tuesday the federation of professionals in the sector, the API, estimated that American commercial crude reserves had increased by around 9.3 million barrels.
“The balance sheet on EIA stocks was much more constructive for the market than that of API, even if the rise in these stocks put prices under pressure,” said Andy Lipow.
The analyst pointed out that the refinery maintenance season is not quite over, implying an increase in crude inventories waiting to pass through refineries.
Thus the refining capacity utilization rate, even if it rose from 87.8% to 88.7% last week, “remains below several percentage points of its level of last year at the end of the year. same time,” emphasized Mr. Lipow. A year ago, capacity utilization was 90.3%.
Gasoline reserves also increased last week by 1.3 million barrels when median market forecasts called for a decline of 1.7 million.
At the same time, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies in the OPEC+ alliance are due to hold the technical meeting of its Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) on April 3.
“Investors are increasingly skeptical about the possibility that OPEC members will “make substantial adjustments to production at their next meeting,” says Ricardo Evangelista.
The JMMC does not have decision-making power over an increase or reduction in the OPEC+ group’s production quotas, but it issues recommendations serving as a basis for measures taken during the organization’s ministerial meetings.