Wednesday 18 August 2021

Oil Price: the API reports a modest crude inventory draw - slight recovery in the markets

 

API crude inventory data - July  - August

With the news of a modest crude inventory draw, announced by the API, American Petroleum Institute, the price of crude oil recovered slightly from the losses it suffered on Tuesday.

As of 09:00 GMT, the price of WTI and Brent stood at $66.89 and $69.43 respectively.

The forecast by the analysts for the week ending 17 August was 1.259 barrels. The API, however, came up with a figure that was lower than the forecast – just 1.163 million barrels.

Judging by the recent figures, it is difficult to spot a correlation between the actual API values and the forecasts by the analysts; it is even harder to find a statistical relationship between the two – if any.

The US crude inventory data by the EIA, US Energy Information Administration, meanwhile, is expected today for the same period.

The crude oil markets were rattled to the core when China admitted that its economy has slowed down, which in turn affected its crude oil imports. The outbreaks of the new Delta variant of the Coronavirus made the matters worse for the markets.

The muted activities in the Chinese petroleum sector were initially attributed to annual refinery cleaning events by some analysts. The latest growth figures from China, however, show it’s not entirely the case.

China expects that the growth will pick up the momentum during the next quarter, but admitted that the next year’s growth will be modest too.

The West and China are at loggerheads for some time and it has, in turn, bred anxiety in many vital sectors. The latest data shows it finally takes its toll on the Chinese economy.

The disaster in sales suffered by Huawei, the Chinese mobile phone giant, is a case in point.

As this is the case, the Chinese economic indicators will be on the radar of crude oil investors for many more months ahead, as woes of the world’s top crude oil importer cannot be trivialized.