Oil over $71 on recovery hopes
Oil prices rose for the third straight day today, edging above $71 a barrel after an industry report showed a drawdown in US crude inventories, boosting the view demand was recovering.
US crude for November delivery rose 19 cents to $71.07 a barrel by 1125 GMT, adding to Tuesday’s gains of 47 cents. London Brent crude rose 25 cents to $68.81.
Oil’s gains followed a report by the American Petroleum Institute (API) saying crude stocks fell 254,000 barrels in the week to 2 October, defying forecasts in a Reuters poll of analysts for a 2.2-million-barrel increase.
The API report is seen as a precursor to the more authoritative data issued by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), which will be released 1430 GMT today.
“Over the last two weeks, the largest pricing action has been on the release of the EIA data rather than on exogenous data and the same is likely today,” Olivier Jakob, managing director of consultants Petromatrix, told Reuters.
The EIA also raised its global oil demand estimate by 170,000 barrels a day for the fourth quarter on Tuesday and said it expected consumption to rise by 1.1 million bpd next year, versus earlier expectations of a 910,000 bpd rise.
The second day of gains for Asian and European shares, on growing confidence that a global economic recovery is under way, helped to support oil prices.
Oil has rebounded from an 11-week low of around $66 in late September back above the $70 level, but some analysts caution it could slip back in the near term.
“Oil looks like it’s on shaky ground as we approach the U.S. third quarter (corporate) reporting season. A lot of near term price gains have been won off a rebounding equity market,” Mark Pervan, a commodities analyst at the Australia & New Zealand Bank, told Reuters.
“I suspect the third-quarter reporting card will struggle to match the impressive second-quarter results, which were mainly driven by one-off aggressive cost cutting.”
After having jumped by around 40% in the second quarter, oil prices have squeezed out a gain of only 1% in the last quarter, trading in a band of between $65 to $75.
While the global economy is healing from the financial crisis, the recovery, along with energy demand, remains fragile.
A US Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday that while the world’s largest economy was clearly rebounding, it was too soon to begin to withdraw the Federal Reserve’s massive support.
Weakness in the dollar has also supported commodities priced in the greenback in recent days as they become cheaper for holders of other currencies.
The dollar remained under pressure on Wednesday, though analysts said selling was moderating.
Gold has risen to a series of record highs over the past two days, with the precious metal touching $1048.20 an ounce today.
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