Leading Benchmarks Advance, API Reports Draw

The world’s two leading crude benchmarks managed to advance during Thursday trading in Asia.

Earlier, the American Petroleum Institute updated a crude inventory draw amounting to 439,000 barrels.

The actual figure is significantly lower than analysts’ final consensus released earlier at more than 1 million barrels of a draw.

It is also a clear improvement from last week’s results where the industry group updated an inventory build of 620,000 barrels.

The American agency is positive that the recent upward trajectory of prices ignited from the recovering demand for crude since the start of the year.

The vaccination programs across the world’s leading economies managed to keep the black gold afloat. Experts are hopeful that demand will revert to pre-pandemic levels by the tail end of the year.

Since the start of 2020, API estimated that around 50 million additional crude inventory have already entered circulation.

In another report from the US Energy Information Administration, the United States reportedly pumped 11 million barrels for the week ending May 11.

This shows a clear recovery, especially when compared to the early days of lockdowns when demand was sluggish. 

During such time, some suppliers needed to discard their inventories as they quickly piled up and made room for new ones.

This bullish prospect managed to uplift the Brent crude which added 0.13% during the session, sending the per barrel price at $68.55.

Its American counterpart, the West Texas Intermediate did not fail to trail on the line and hiked by 0.15% to $66.15 per barrel.

Both benchmarks hiked a robust 3% respectively during the early days of the week as anticipation for bettering US-Iran relations dominated the market.

Update on Gasoline, Distillate Inventories

In the same report, gasoline stockpiles came at a 1.99 million barrel draw which is lower than last week’s result that was above 2 million barrels.

Meanwhile, distillate stockpiles fell by more than 5 million barrels following the previous week’s 2 million barrel slash.

Analysts are positive that the demand for oil and all of its related products will continue to ramp up as the United States enter summer.

In the near term, the Memorial Day celebration at the end of the month will support prices upwards.

Analysts noted that more citizens will hit the road this year for vacation, especially that they have put vacation plans for last year to later.

With vaccination on the front line, particularly in the world’s most powerful economy, crude demand is heavily supported, at least for now.