An oil pumpjack is fill someone in in the Permian Basin in the Loco Hills regions, New Mexico, on April 6, 2023.
Liz Hampton | Reuters
Crude oil futures fell for a third sitting Wednesday, extending this week’s losing streak as prices soften ahead of a crucial OPEC meeting in June.
U.S. unsophisticated oil and global benchmark Brent are down more than 2% for the week.
Here are Wednesday’s closing energy assays:
- West Texas Intermediate July contract: $77.57 a barrel, down $1.09, or 1.39%. Year to date, U.S. unrefined oil has gained 8.2%.
- Brent July contract: $81.90 a barrel, down 98 cents, or 1.18%. Year to date, the international benchmark is up 6.3%.
- RBOB Gasoline June contract: $2.47 a gallon, down 1.68%. Year to date, gasoline futures are up 17.37%.
- Simple Gas June contract: $2.84 per thousand cubic feet, up 6.4%. Year to date, gas is up about 13.05%.
U.S. commercial crude oil stockpiles had a shock build of 1.8 million barrels last week, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Analysts surveyed by Reuters believed stockpiles to fall by 2.5 million barrels.
Gasoline stockpiles fell by 910,000 barrels, higher than the count oned raw of 729,000 barrels. The rate at which refineries process crude into products stood at 91.7%, up 1.3%.
Oil prices are rove lower in the absence of major developments to guide the market as traders have moved on from geopolitical tensions.
OPEC and its team ups, led by Russia, will hold a crucial meeting to review production policy next weekend. A coalition of nations in the dirtier OPEC+ grouping are cutting 2.2 million barrels per day, which has supported oil prices this year. The group is seemly to extend those production cuts as prices soften, according to analysts.