The price of WTI crude oil went out of the flat corridor.
The U.S. oil inventory figures may have a short-term impact on the price of oil. Last week, data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that U.S. crude oil inventories declined lower than predicted. This happened because of the increase in processing and exports. At the same time, gasoline reserves unexpectedly increased due to lower demand.
Crude oil inventories fell by 4.6 million barrels during the week to 466 million barrels. This exceeds analysts' expectations in more than 4 times. Previously, a decrease by 1.1 million barrels was forecasted.
Oil reserves in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by 1.6 million barrels last week to less than 368 million barrels. This figure is the lowest since October 1983.
The Spring maintenance season is over and refinery volumes rose by 259,000 barrels per day. The refinery utilization rate rose to 91% of total capacity, which is the highest level since the end of December.
However, the estimated demand for gasoline dropped to 8.5 million barrels per day. It is a 3.9% decrease compared to the last year.
Weak demand allowed U.S. gasoline inventories to increase unexpectedly by 1.3 million barrels over the week. The EIA reports that the level is 223.5 million barrels now.
The rise in gasoline inventories and the drop in gasoline demand could put pressure on WTI crude oil, as it could indicate a decline in demand for fuel production.
The WTI crude oil price peaked at 83.35 amid the OPEC+ agreement to reduce oil production by 1.66 million barrels per day. This news created a price gap of 567 points. This gap for two and a half weeks has not been covered by the price. In most cases, the coverage of the gap is up to 80%. The price broke out of the 79.90 - 83.40 range flat, which means that a new trend is forming towards the price gap coverage.
Signal:
The short-term prospects for WTI are to sell.
The target is at the level of 75.40.
Part of the profit should be fixed near the level of 76.65.
The stop-loss is at the level of 79.50.
Bearish trend has a short-term character, so the volume of trade should not exceed 2% of your balance.
This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.
