Oil down first time in a week as U.S. draws disappoint, Fed hawkish

Investing.com — The oil market has thrown its own wrench into the crude rally after disappointing U.S. inventory draws last week.

The Federal Reserve’s resumption of a hawkish stance with a quarter point rate hike for July — versus June’s pause — also put crude prices on the backfoot.

New York-based West Texas Intermediate, or , for delivery in September settled down 85 cents, or 1.1%, at  $78.78 a barrel. In the previous session, the U.S. crude hit a three-month high of $79.90. Even with Wednesday’s slide, WTI was up more than 2% for the current week and poised to end July up almost 12%.

London-based settled down 72 cents, or 0.9%, at $82.92 per barrel after surging to an April high of $83.88 on Tuesday. The global crude benchmark was up 1.7% on the week and about 10% on the month.

Wednesday’s reversal in crude prices came after government data showed U.S. crude inventories fell by just a quarter of expected levels last week despite an end to supply injections from the national reserve.

Fuel inventories also fell less than expected for the week ended July 21, the Weekly Petroleum Status Report from the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, showed, raising questions about demand in a summer travel period that should logically see large draws.

The fell by 0.6 million barrels during the week ended July 21, versus the 2.348M-barrel decline forecast by industry analysts polled by local media. In the week to July 14, crude stockpiles slid by 0.708M barrels after a build of 5.946M the prior week — the most in a month.

Interestingly, the weak crude draw reported by the EIA did not come with what had been the market’s caveat for months — release of crude from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 

Prior to this, weekly drawdowns from the reserve had been a point of contention for oil bulls, who said the additional oil had often suppressed crude prices from rallying. The so-called SPR draws stopped two weeks ago. With just days to the end of July, both US crude and Brent oil prices are carrying a 12% gain on the month, on the notion of high oil demand.

The lower-than-expected crude draw for last week also came on the back of the million-barrel-per-day production cut announced by the Saudis for all of July.

On the side, the EIA reported a draw of 0.786M barrels for last week. Analysts had expected the agency to cite a decline of 1.678M barrels instead, after a drop of 1.066M the prior week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 US fuel product.

Finished motor gasoline products delivered to the marketplace — an indication of demand at the pump — stood at 8.855M barrels versus the prior week’s 8.756M. Typically, at this time of year, more than 9.0M barrels of gasoline or more are supplied to the market each week.

In the case of , the EIA reported a drop of 0.245M barrels. Analysts had forecast a decline of 0.301M barrels last week, against a previous build of 0.014M. Distillates are refined into , diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships, and fuel for jets.

The Fed, meanwhile, a 25-basis point hike to interest rates, resuming the monetary tightening it began 18 months ago, after a pause in June.

Jerome Powell, chair of the central bank, also told a news conference that the Fed will maintain a restrictive monetary policy as long as necessary to bring inflation hovering at north of 3% to its long-term target of 2% per year. 

“We don’t see ourselves getting at two percent inflation…until 2025,” Powell said, adding that rate cuts will not happen either at least for another year.

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