Oil market shock - American Petroleum Institute says supplies surge
When American Petroleum Institute supply data were released late Wednesday, oil market got shocked. However, investors still need to receive confirmation from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
According to the trade group, U.S. crude-oil supplies as of the week ended Feb. 13 saw a whopping 14.3 million-barrel jump from a week earlier.
Analysts polled by Platts predict an increase of just 3.1 million barrels for the week.
Prices for March crude on the New York Mercantile
Exchange dropped to $50.48 a barrel in electronic trading after the API
data, down from a regular-session settlement of $52.14, says MarketWatch.
However, market player will need to wait for confirmation from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which will issue its weekly petroleum supply figures at 11 a.m. EST on Thursday. Supply data are delayed by a day this week due to the Presidents’ Day holiday.
“We would be concerned that much of this big build in crude stocks is taking place in the Midwest, backing up throughout the Midwest district, beyond [storage hub] Cushing, Okla.,” said Richard Hastings, a macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities.
At the same time, “it has to be considered that the West Coast port [problem] could be suppressing some fuel demand, in addition to some refinery outages trending above 1 million barrels per day over the last week,” he said.
