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Hong Kong - Oil extended its advance into a bull market as US industry data showed an unexpected decline in crude stockpiles, the first decrease since Hurricane Harvey hit the coast last month and shuttered refineries.
Futures rose as much as 0.9% in New York after slipping on Tuesday. They’re still more than 20% above the most recent low, a common definition of a bull market. Inventories fell 761 000 barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report. Government data Wednesday is forecast to show they gained a fourth week, a Bloomberg survey shows.
Oil has advanced more than 10% in September alone on forecasts for rising crude demand and as US Gulf Coast refiners resume operations after Harvey. Prices rallied Monday to the highest level in five months as Turkey threatened to shut down Kurdish crude shipments through its territory.
“Global inventories are still elevated, but they are falling,” said Barnabas Gan, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking in Singapore. “We’re looking for demand to remain strong from here through to the end of the year. Oil prices may have more room to move higher.”
West Texas Intermediate for November delivery gained as much as 46 cents to $52.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $52.24 at 09:08.
Total volume traded was about 48% below the 100-day average. Prices slid 34c to $51.88 on Tuesday.
Brent for November settlement added 32c to $58.76 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices lost 58c to close at $58.44 on Tuesday. The global benchmark crude traded at a premium of $6.52 to WTI.
US crude stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI and the nation’s biggest oil-storage hub, increased by 1.06 million barrels last week, the API said on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the data. Nationwide inventories probably rose by 3.1 million barrels, according to the Bloomberg survey before an Energy Information Administration report.
Oil-market news:
• Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, posted a near 50% increase in first-half profit as proceeds from assets sales boosted stagnant operating profit from its core business.
• Alliance of Chinese independent refiners in Shandong province, known as teapots, targets 20 million metric tons of crude imports in 2017, up 67% from a year earlier, says Zhang Liucheng, vice president of one of the processors, Dongming Petrochemical.
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