Oil drops as US inventories hit record

By FXStreet Oil benchmarks on both sides of Atlantic ended this week’s 4-day winning streak and turned in the negative territory, having faced a double whammy in the overnight trades.

US crude reserves hit all-time high

Currently both crude benchmarks are seen extending overnight losses, with WTI sliding -0.70% to 30.56 and the Brent oil trades marginally lower near 34 handle. Oil prices resumed the dominant downtrend after the official government report, published by EIA, showed that the US crude inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, to a peak of 504.1 million barrels, the third week of record highs in the past month.

Moreover, the downside in the black gold was exacerbated by reports that Saudi showed reluctance to cut output levels, having agreed to stall production on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir noted, “the oil issue will be determined by supply and demand and by market forces. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia will protect its market share and we have said so.”

Markets now await the US rigs count data and closely monitor OPEC headlines for further momentum on oil. While US CPI data due later today will have major influence on the buck, eventually impacting the dollar priced-in commodity, …read more

Source:: FX Street