Oil futures rose Wednesday, finding support after industry data showed a large drop in U.S. crude inventories.
West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery
CL00,
CLX21,
rose $1.05, or 1.5%, to $71.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. November Brent crude
BRN00,
BRNX21,
the global benchmark, was up 99 cents, or 1.3%, at $75.35 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
“Prices were additionally lent buoyancy by the decline in U.S. crude oil stocks reported yesterday by the [American Petroleum Institute], even though this was due primarily to the production outages in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Barbara Lambrecht, analyst at Commerzbank, in a note.
Oil and natural-gas production in the Gulf of Mexico has been slow to recover in the wake of Hurricane Ida, which made landfall on the Louisiana Gulf Coast on Aug. 29.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement late Tuesday estimated 16.6% of Gulf oil production remains shut in, equal to 320,909 barrels a day of production. More than 25% of natural-gas production is also shut in, equal to 566.67 million cubic feet a day.
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, reported late Tuesday that U.S. crude supplies fell by 6.1 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 17, according to sources. The API also reportedly showed inventory declines of 432,000 barrels for gasoline and 2.7 million barrels for distillates.
Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub, meanwhile, edged down by 1.7 million barrels for the week, sources said.
Official inventory data from the Energy Information Administration will be released Wednesday morning. On average, the EIA is expected to show crude inventories down by 3.8 million barrels, according to a survey of analysts conducted by S&P Global Platts. The survey also calls for supply declines of about 900,000 barrels for gasoline and 1.4 million barrels for distillates.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
