The price of intermediate oil of Texas (WTI) fell 2.5% Wednesday and stood at 50.29 dollars a barrel after meeting another weekly increase higher than expected in the US oil reserves.
At the end of the live operations on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), WTI futures contracts for delivery in January lost 1.27 dollars compared to last session.
The price reached today by contracts, the lowest since October 2017, is the result of a volatile session in which the dollar’s weakness has been pushed upwards, but the new data on reserves has ended up weighing more.
The Department of Energy reported today that the country’s oil reserves increased last week by 3.6 million barrels, up to 450.1 million.
Analysts had calculated that the rise would be one million. It is the tenth consecutive weekly increase, attributed to the recent rise in domestic production to a record of 11.7 million barrels per day.
Initially, Texas oil prices had benefited from the positive reaction of the markets to the speech of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who said that interest rates are close to a neutral level.
On the other hand, the reserves of gasoline for automotive industry were reduced by 800,000 barrels, standing at 224.6 million, and those of distilled fuels, such as diesel and heating oil, rose by 2.6 million, to 121.8 million.
Meanwhile, gasoline contracts due in December subtracted 2 cents to 1.40 dollars per gallon, and natural gas contracts, maturing in the same month, added 45 cents, to 4.72 dollars per thousand cubic feet.