Forex Marketz Daily Forex News – Fully Markets Update
Crude oil prices edged higher Friday morning in Asian trade hours. Oil was supported by a fall in U.S. inventories. However price action was capped by a jump in U.S. exports. This reduced net imports in the world’s largest consumer of fuel to a record low.
As of 2 am GMT, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were fetching $62.89 a barrel. This was a gain of 12 cents, or 0.2 percent, from their yesterday’s close.
The global benchmark Brent crude futures were up five cents to trade at $66.44 a barrel.
Inventories in the United States fell by 1.6 million barrels for the week that ended February 16. They came in at 420.48 million barrels. This is according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and it was released on Thursday.
Crude Oil Traders Watch Global Inventory Levels
The forward price curves for Brent and WTI are forming what is called a backwardation. This is when price action, for immediate delivery, are more expensive than those for sale at a later date. This is makes it difficult for traders to buy and store the black gold for periods of time.
The reduction in inventories sparked a price rally, at first, in North American trade hours on Thursday. Momentum stalled today in Asia as traders focused turned on high U.S. exports and low imports.
U.S. crude exports sored higher to above 2 million barrels per day. This was for last week. This is according to data from the EIA. It is now close to a record high of 2.1 million barrels per day that was hit back in October.
That educed net imports to their lowest level to below 5 million barrels per day. This is its lowest print on record.
