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Oil futures hovered near unchanged early Wednesday, with traders awaiting an official update on U.S. petroleum inventories after an industry group reported a large drop in crude stocks but increases in gasoline and distillate supplies.
Price action
-
West Texas Intermediatre crude for February delivery
CL00,
+0.26% CLG24,
+0.26%
was up 4 cents, or 0.1%, at $72.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. -
March Brent crude
BRN00,
+0.17% BRNH24,
+0.17% ,
the global benchmark, was flat at $77.59 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
Market drivers
Oil futures were stabilizing after a Monday drop attributed to Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut its official selling price for crude to all regions. Tuesday’s bounce came as fears the Israel-Hamas war could spiral into a wider conflict capable of threatening crude supplies from the Middle East were reignited after the Israeli military stated that it expects the war against Hamas to continue through 2024.
The American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported that U.S. crude inventories fell 5.2 million barrels last week, according to a source citing the figures, while gasoline stocks rose 4.9 million barrels and distillate stocks increased 6.9 million barrels.
Official inventory data from the Energy Information Administration is due Wednesday morning.
Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Commodity Insight, on average, expect U.S. crude inventories to show a fall of 900,000 barrels in the week ended Jan. 5. Gasoline supplies are seen up 4.9 million barrels, with distillates up 3.7 million barrels.
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