Brent crude futures dropped 34 cents, or 0.4%, to $81.26 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 38 cents, or 0.5%, to $76.26 a barrel
Oil prices dropped on Thursday after a larger-than-expected surge in U.S. crude inventories, raising concerns about demand in the world’s largest economy and top oil consuming nation.
Brent crude futures dropped 34 cents, or 0.4%, to $81.26 a barrel at 0337 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 38 cents, or 0.5%, to $76.26 a barrel.
Both contracts lost over $1 a barrel on Wednesday, pressured by the increase in U.S. crude inventories, as refining declined to its lowest levels since December 2022.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said U.S. crude inventories climbed by 12 million barrels to 439.5 million barrels in the week to February 9.
While the stock build up raised concerns among traders about demand, some analysts said the move was largely driven by lower refinery utilisation rates, especially with BP’s 435,000 bpd Whiting plant in Indiana down.
The continued outage at BP’s Whiting refinery will have contributed to lower run rates, along with some other refinery maintenance. Lower refinery run rates meant that gasoline stocks dropped, the analysts added.
On the supply side, Kazakhstan said it will compensate for its oil overproduction in January within the next four months, in accordance with its OPEC+ commitments. Iraq also said it will review its oil production and address any excess output above its OPEC+ voluntary cuts in the coming four months, if found.
This comes ahead of OPEC’s March meeting, where the group plans to decide whether to extend supply cuts into the second quarter, ANZ analysts said in a note on Thursday.
They added: Any signs that extension looks unlikely would weigh on sentiment across the oil market.
