Oil up 2% as bulls turn defensive against Powell, U.S. crude build forecast

Investing.com -- Jay Powell droned on and on about how the U.S. possibly needs more rate hikes to bring inflation back to 2% a year. The Fed chief’s dire prognosis, however, seemed to fall on the deaf ears of oil bulls who chased crude prices up 2% Wednesday to recoup all of the previous day’s loss.

Those long the market also looked beyond a forecast build of nearly two million barrels of crude for last week — the third increase in four weeks that would have added a projected 15M barrels to supply over the period.

“It seems to be defensive play ahead of the data,” John Kilduff, partner at New York energy hedge fund Again Capital, said, referring to weekly supply-demand numbers on crude, gasoline and distillates, due in estimate form from industry group API later on Wednesday before official publication by the EIA on Thursday. 

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude settled up $1.34, or 1.9%, at $72.53 per barrel by 13:30 ET (17:30 GMT), overwriting Tuesday’s 1.8% slide. The U.S. crude benchmark has had a volatile month, finishing last week up 2.3% after a net 3.5% tumble over two prior weeks.

London-traded Brent settled the New York session up $1.22, or 1.6%, at $77.12, versus Tuesday’s modest slip of 0.3%. Like WTI, the global crude benchmark has had a rocky June, finishing last week up 2.4%, after a net slump of nearly 2% over two previous weeks.

Powell stays on higher rates mode

Crude prices fell just briefly Wednesday before recovering amid Powell’s biennial address to Congress. Nearly all policy-makers at the Fed think there should be more rate hikes to curb inflation, Powell said in his speech, signaling that the central bank’s pause this month of its year-long campaign of monetary tightening was just that — a pause.

The Fed’s next decision on rates is scheduled on July 26, with many economists already predicting the central bank will add another quarter percentage point to rates, bringing them to a peak of 5.5% in a bid to further tame inflation.

Market participants were also on the lookout for U.S. weekly oil inventory data, due after market settlement from API, or the American Petroleum Institute.

The API will release at approximately 16:30 ET (20:30 GMT) a snapshot of closing balances on U.S. crude, gasoline and distillates for the week ended June 16. The numbers serve as a precursor to official inventory data on the same due from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.

Crude, gasoline build seen for last week

For last week, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report a crude stockpile build of 1.873M barrels, on top of the 7.919M barrel rise reported during the week to June 9.

On the gasoline inventory front, the consensus is for a rise of 1.091M barrels that would add to the 2.108M barrels gained in the previous week. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

With distillate stockpiles, the expectation is for a drop of 0.001M barrels versus the prior week’s gain of 2.123M. Distillates are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships and fuel for jets.