Oil prices surged on Wednesday, while the US Department of Energy expected the statistics on the country's stockpiles. By the way, for the first time positive dynamics is observed on the black gold market after four days of decline. Earlier, the downbeat mood of the investors was provoked by concerns about the prospects for fuel demand amid spreading of coronavirus cases around the world.
Thus, at the time of writing the article, the price of October futures for Brent crude oil rose by 0.77% up to $69.56 per barrel. At the end of the trading session, a day earlier their price fell by 0.7% down to $69.03 per barrel, which was the lowest level since July 19.
October WTI futures went up by 0.62% to $66.77 per barrel. Meanwhile, September futures quotations rose by 0.72% up to $67.07 per barrel. On Tuesday their value declined by 1%, closing at $66.59 a barrel, the lowest level since August 9.
At the beginning of the trading session, on Wednesday the world prices for black gold grew by about 0.3%.
WTI crude oil has lost more than 3% over the past four days. This year, in March, is the last time such a prolonged fall of the black gold market was recorded.
On Wednesday evening, the US Department of Energy will publish the official data on commercial domestic oil reserves. Experts expect the Energy Department to report a 1.05-million-barrel decline in reserves over the past week.
The previous day, the American Petroleum Institute said, following the results of last week, the commercial reserves of black gold in the country decreased by 1.16 million barrels and gasoline reserves went down by 2 million barrels. Distillate stocks, on the contrary, grew by 502,000 barrels.
According to analysts' forecasts, the American shale oil production will rise to 8.1 million barrels per day in September. These figures will be the highest since April last year.
Experts say that the current situation in the oil market remains quite unstable. Investors are concerned about the prospects for recovery of demand under the COVID-19 in the world.
One of the major disturbing factors for the market remains the fall in crude oil prices amid unstable demand in India and European countries. India is the world's third largest importer of crude oil. Today that country has started to sell oil from its strategic reserve to state-owned refineries, according to the policy of commercialization of the federal storages by means of leasing areas.
Another downward factor for the black gold market was the strengthening dollar. By the way, not only oil, but also the market of metals and precious metals was affected by it. Traditionally, a strong dollar makes oil and other raw materials more expensive, which is instantly reflected in the demand.
