WTI Holds Gains After API Reports Across-The-Board Inventory Builds

Oil prices rallied on the day, with WTI rebounding back above $79 as factors ranging from the end of the Fed’s (dovish) rate increases to swelling demand in China give bulls more ammunition.

“The main driver for oil lately has been the potential for a resurgence of oil demand out of China, which may continue into February considering how Chinese economic momentum picked up in the overnight PMI reports,” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management.

The nationwide ‘deep freeze’ has clearly been impacting the inventory data over the last few weeks. We suspect today could be the first ‘clean’ indication…

API

• Crude +6.33mm (-1mm exp)

• Cushing +2.72mm

• Gasoline +2.73mm

• Distillates +1.53mm

Crude inventories built for a 5th straight week (despite expectations for a small draw) with Cushing stocks soaring once again. On the product side, we also saw notable builds (with Distillates biggest rise since the first week of December)…

Source: Bloomberg

Additionally, AlphaBBL data suggests that crude inventories at Cushing climbed 2.1 million barrels in the last week.

WTI was trading around $79 ahead of the API print and managed to hold those gains despite the builds…

The OPEC-plus group including Russia meets tomorrow and while most analysts don’t expect major policy shifts, energy investors are always slightly on edge ahead of OPEC gatherings.