Commodities: Oil shrugs off EIA, API surprise to head higher
Crude-oil futures are skipping higher on Wednesday afternoon as traders saw surprise builds in US inventories as better than they might have been, and despite expectations of a draw.
Energy Information Administration data revealed a 100,000 barrels build in US stores of crude for the week ended June 23.
This government data followed American Petroleum Institute numbers last night that showed US crude inventories rose 851,000 barrels last week.
Traders had expected US stores to decline last week.
At 15:42 BST, Nymex-priced West Texas Intermediate crude was up 0.47% to $44.45 a barrel, with Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent up 0.73% to $46.99 a barrel.
The black liquid had been see-sawing through Wednesday, but reacted overall positively to the EIA data.
"There appears to be no end to the bearish news on the oil market," said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank, in Reuters report.
Fritsch told Reuters that the build was likely to add fuel to doubts that any process of market tightening is underway.
Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft, both analysts at Accendo Markets, noted that crude prices were rattled overnight by the API data.
"This renews concerns that rising US production will offset OPEC-led production cuts meant to address global oversupply," they said.
"Brent Crude, however, has recovered from lows after bouncing from resistance turned support at $46 and is now looking to overcome resistance at $46.70 to continue its recovery from 10-month lows of a week ago. US Crude eyes hindrance at $44.20."
The oil market remains in the grips of a three-year supply overhang, with traders wary of rising US shale output and the sufficiency of Opec production cuts.
Turning to metals, on Comex, gold rose 0.22% to $1249.7 an ounce. Silver added 0.65% to $16.76 an ounce. Copper was 0.17% ahead at 266.6 cents a pound.
On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were mostly ahead. Aluminum added 1.13%, copper rose 1.1% and zinc firmed 1.03%. Tin shed 0.05%.