Crude oil prices rose today after the Energy Information Administration reported a crude oil inventory draw of 4.5 million barrels for the week to July 22. This compared with a modest inventory decline of 400,000 barrels for the previous week. It also compared with an estimated crude oil inventory draw of 4 million barrels for last week, as reported by the American Petroleum Institute.
At 422.1 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 6 percent below the average for this time of the year.
In gasoline, the authority estimated an inventory decline of 3.3 million barrels for the week to July 22, which compared with a build of 3.5 million barrels for the previous week.
Gasoline production last week averaged 9.7 million barrels daily, which compared with 9.4 million bpd a week earlier.
In middle distillates, the EIA estimated a stock draw of 800,000 barrels for the week to July 22. This compared with a draw of 1.3 million barrels for the previous week.
Middle distillate production averaged 5 million barrels daily last week, which was almost unchanged on in the previous week.
Brent crude traded at $105 per barrel at the time of writing, with West Texas Intermediate at $95.46 per barrel. The International Monetary Fund earlier this week pressured oil price as it revised down its forecast from global economic growth from 3.6 percent to 3.2 percent.
“The outlook has darkened significantly since April. The world may soon be teetering on the edge of a global recession, only two years after the last one,” the IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said at a Tuesday news conference.
The IMF official added that the downside potential for the global economy is quite significant due to major uncertainties around the supply and price of energy and food resulting from the war in Ukraine: factors that could have a strong negative effect on economic growth.
