By Adedapo Adesanya
Crude oil prices moved in different directions at the global oil market on Wednesday as crude stockpiles in the United States declined, exceeding expectations.
Business Post reports that the Brent crude futures lost 17 cents or 0.25 per cent to trade at $68.71 per barrel, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures depreciated by 6 cents or 0.09 per cent to sell for $65.63 per barrel, while Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude appreciated by 87 cents or 1.29 per cent to trade at $67.18 per barrel.
Further, the OPEC Basket was up by $1.58 or 2.43 per cent to $66.67 per barrel, while the Brass River and Qua Iboe, two of Nigeria’s oil grades, improved by $1.66 or 2.56 per cent each to $66.59 per barrel apiece.
Prices of crude oil had earlier rose after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported an inventory draw of 8 million barrels for the week to April 30 but later gave up the gains to trade lower.
The oil inventory figure compares with a weekly draw of 7.688 million barrels estimated by the American Petroleum Institute (EIA) a day earlier, and with a moderate build of 100,000 barrels that the EIA reported for the previous week.
Analysts had expected the EIA to report a crude oil inventory decline of 2.19 million barrels for the period.
However, despite the impressive signals, the market is still reeling from the increased rate of coronavirus in some other parts of the world with infections still on the rise in India and Japan, two of the world’s largest oil exporters and consumers.
In India, COVID-19 related deaths rose by a record of 3,780 in the last 24 hours while daily infections rose by 382,315 on Wednesday, indicating that the South Asian country’s morbidity number has been in excess of 300,000 every day for the past two weeks.
Medical experts dispute published figures saying India’s actual figures could be five to 10 times the official details as the country has added 10 million cases in just over four months, after taking more than 10 months to reach its first 10 million, a worrying sign for the black gold.
On Japan’s end, the country’s government is considering an extension of the state of emergency for Tokyo and other major urban areas that were scheduled to end on May 11. It had placed Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures under a 17-day state of emergency on April 25 in an effort to reverse the surge in coronavirus infections.
Meanwhile, vaccination efforts in other parts of the world keep indicating that demand is on its pathway to recovery. In the US, more than 40 per cent of adults have received at least one shot and more than half of adults in the United Kingdom. Also, in the US, states have begun to relax movement restrictions as the rates of vaccinated people continue to rise.
In addition, the European Union is set to start allowing foreign tourists into the bloc beginning from June in an attempt to avoid a second ruined summer tourist season, which will help boost demand.
Dipo Olowookere