
Oil prices on Wednesday lost some of their footing, following the previous session’s 3 percent rise, with supply disruptions backed by a weak U.S. dollar said to have driven trading.
As of 1017 GMT, Brent was down 39 cents at $67.18 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate was down 22 cents at $62.17.
The U.S. dollar approached four-year lows against a basket of other currencies, making dollar-denominated commodities such as oil cheaper for those holding other currencies.
It was unclear why oil was trading downward on Wednesday given that the very same bullish factors – Iran, the U.S. winter storms, and Kazakhstan – were previously stoking supply tightness concerns; however, a Reuters poll showed that U.S. crude oil and gasoline stockpiles were expected to have risen in the week ended January 23, while distillate inventories probably declined.
Still, Bloomberg reported that total product supplied, a proxy for demand, rose by 503,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 20.6 million bpd; gasoline demand jumped by 923,000 bpd to 8.7 million bpd, while distillate demand was up 544,000 bpd to 4 million bpd.
Phil Flynn, senior market analyst for Price Futures Group Inc., remarked, “Gasoline demand was up big last week, apparently everyone went to get gasoline before the snow hit.”
Giovanni Staunovo, analyst at UBS, added, “The next report will be more interesting, to see the impact of the cold weather on the data.”
Wednesday also saw geopolitical risk elevated due to U.S. president Donald Trump, who announced that a second “massive armada” larger than the one deployed to Venezuela last month was heading toward Iran and said that “time is running out” for a deal; he added that “the next attack will be far worse,” referring to the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
However, geopolitical risks were said to be mitigated by statements from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of whom stressed they would not allow their airspace or land to be used in a military attack against Iran.
In other oil news on Wednesday, Vortexa said in a report that India‘s crude and condensate imports will likely hit a record 5.2 million bpd this month, as deliveries of non-Russian oil surged; Vortexa went on to state that the jump in non-Russian crude imports is set to more than offset the decline in India’s imports of Russian crude.