(New York) Oil prices ended mixed on Thursday, weighed down by a surprise and massive increase in American crude stocks, which is raising fears for demand for black gold.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in December, nibbled 0.20%, to close at 86.00 dollars. It hit the brakes late in the session, having gained as much as more than 2%.
Its American equivalent, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI), with maturity in November, lost 0.69% to $82.91.
“The significant increase in (US) reserves was significantly higher than the market expected,” commented Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates, putting pressure on prices.
These commercial crude stocks increased by 10.2 million barrels last week, while analysts were expecting a contraction of 1.4 million, according to the consensus established by the Bloomberg agency.
The influx of crude into US inventories is due, in part, to the deceleration of refineries, whose utilization rate fell to 85.7%, the lowest since January and down 8 percentage points in one month .
This is a sign, for Andy Lipow, that traditional maintenance operations are in full swing, before the start of the cold season, which usually corresponds to a renewed demand for diesel and fuel oil.
Among the other elements of explanation, in addition to the fall in exports (-38% over one week), the analyst cited American production, which reached, over the period considered, a historic record, at 13.2 million barrels per day.
That’s more than the 13.1 million barrels recorded in two separate weeks in February and March 2020, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the effect of a drop in demand, linked to confinements, production then plunged, before gradually increasing.
Encouraged by the rise in prices in August and September, American producers, particularly for shale oil, accelerated further, partially compensating for the voluntary restrictions imposed by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
The slowdown in prices on Thursday was also accentuated, according to Edward Moya of Oanda, by the publication of the CPI consumer price index, which came out above expectations in September, reviving fears of see very high rates for a long time.
Crude prices have now returned to the level they were at before the surprise offensive by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday.
For Andy Lipow, the market has calmed his fears of seeing the war spread and disrupt supplies of black gold.
“The probability of seeing the Strait of Hormuz closed,” the only crossing point for exports from several major producers in the Middle East, “seems very low,” says the analyst. » And if Israel attacked Iran, it would rather be military sites than oil installations. “
The United States has said it has no evidence that Iran was involved in preparing the Hamas attack.