By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - Oil prices kept up with their relentless climb on Tuesday, with U.S. crude futures coming within cents of the $80 barrel level they last reached in 2014, as bulls bet the market will remain under supplied in the stretch toward winter.
The latest rally of 1.7% on the day marked the fourth straight day of wins for the long-oil crowd. It also came a day after producers in the OPEC+ alliance decided to stick to their prior commitment of only adding incrementally to output despite the squeeze in global supplies and worsening inflation by the day.
From its first-ever negative pricing of $40 per barrel in April 2020, U.S. crude’s West Texas Intermediate benchmark settled Tuesday’s trade at $78.93 per barrel, up $1.31 on the day or 1.7%. Earlier in the session, WTI hit a seven-year high of $79.47. The U.S. crude benchmark has gained 63% this year and about 5% in the last four sessions alone.
London-traded Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, finished the latest session at $82.56 per barrel, up $1.30 or 1.6%. Brent peaked at $83.11 during the session. It is up 60% on the year.
Oil prices have been on a tear since OPEC+ — comprising the 13-member Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and a group of 10 other producers steered by Russia — decided to stick to plans to increase production by 400,000 barrels per day through April.
Scott Shelton, energy futures broker at ICAP (LON:NXGN) in Durham, North Carolina, described the outcome as a “perfect storm” for oil bears “as OPEC signaled zero interest in adding more than 400 KBD.”
Tuesday’s run-up came just before the release of a weekly snapshot on U.S. inventories from the American Petroleum Institute.
API will issue at 4:30 PM ET (20:30 GMT) its log on U.S. crude, gasoline and distillate stockpiles for the week ended Oct 1. The figures serve as a precursor to the official weekly inventory data due on Wednesday from the EIA, or U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Analysts tracked by Investing.com have forecast that crude inventories fell by 418,000 barrels last week, compared with the previous week’s build of 4.58 million.
Gasoline inventories likely rose by 279,000 barrels, after the build of 193,000 in the previous week, forecasts showed.
Stockpiles of distillates, which include diesel and heating oil, is expected to have risen by 1.0 million barrels after a gain of 385,000 the week before.