(London) Oil prices rose slightly on Wednesday, driven by first weekly data on American stocks, pending the Fed’s monetary policy decision and American inflation.
Around 5:35 a.m. (Eastern time), the price of a barrel of North Sea Brent, for delivery in August, rose 1.16% to $82.87.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in July, gained 1.30% to $78.91.
The two global benchmarks continued their upward momentum since the start of the week.
Prices found support in the first weekly data on US oil inventories for the week ended June 7.
The API, the federation of professionals in the sector, reported a decrease in commercial crude reserves of 2.4 million barrels per day last week, and of 2.5 million barrels per day for gasoline .
The “decline in crude oil inventories is greater than expected,” notes Tamas Varga, analyst at PVM Energy.
Investors are awaiting figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) later on Wednesday.
Finally, the market should remain attentive to the publication later on Wednesday of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for May in the United States.
“This will be followed by the decision of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) on interest rates, which will most likely leave them unchanged,” notes Tamas Varga.
“The publication of robust employment data in the United States on Friday raised fears that the Fed would keep interest rates at a higher level for longer,” recalls John Plassard, analyst at Mirabaud.
The press conference following the Fed’s decision “could provide some indication of when monetary policy easing might begin,” Varga says.
A high interest rate environment tends to dampen growth, and therefore demand for crude, while lower interest rates are supportive of oil purchases by promoting growth.