Oil tumbles 4%, with U.S. crude below $70, as BoE shocks markets

Investing.com -- Good data but bad timing for oil bulls.

The weekly reading on supply-demand for U.S. oil came on the positive side Thursday. But crude prices tumbled 4% instead, with New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, breaking below the key $ 70-per-barrel support as traders reacted more to the sticker shock of the latest Bank of England rate hike that stunned global markets.

The BoE raised interest rates by half a percentage point — twice more than forecast — saying it needed to act against "significant" indicators that British inflation would take longer to fall. U.K.’s main interest rate is now at 5%, the highest since 2008 after the largest rate increase since February. The U.K. central bank has raised rates for 13 consecutive times to trail just behind the Federal Reserve, which has brought U.S. rates to a peak of 5.25% with 10 straight rounds of tightening.

Fed Chair Jay Powell, testifying before the Senate on Thursday, reinforced expectations that the U.S. central bank will hike rates at least twice more this year.

“It’s bad macro versus good data,” John Kilduff, partner at New York energy hedge fund Again Capital said, referring to the market reaction to surging rates that usurped any feel-good impact from the positive weekly reading on oil inventories from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA.

Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, concurred, saying: “Oil prices are going to remain heavy as central bank tightening will kill the global growth outlook."

WTI settled down $3.02, or 4.2%, at $69.51 per barrel, overwriting Wednesday’s near 3% rally. 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 down $2.98, or 3.9%, at $74.14, versus Wednesday’s gain of 1.6%. 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.

The U.S. crude inventory balance fell by 3.831 million barrels during the week ended June 16, the EIA said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report as market participants tried to discern demand in what is typically the busiest time of the year for travel. 

Industry analysts polled by Investing.com had only expected a build of 1.873M barrels in the latest week.

In the previous week to June 9, crude stockpiles rose by 7.919M barrels.

The crude build reported by the EIA, however, came with a usual caveat: The release of 1.7M from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, without which the inventory drop would logically have been 5.5M.

Highest weekly demand for fuels since December; Crude exports up 40%

On the gasoline inventory side, the EIA reported a build of 0.479M barrels. Analysts had expected the agency to cite a build of 1.091M barrels instead, after the previous week’s rise of 2.108M barrels. Automotive fuel gasoline is the No. 1 U.S. fuel product.

In the case of distillate stockpiles, the EIA reported a build of 0.433M barrels. Analysts had forecast a draw of just 1,000 barrels last week, against a previous build of 2.123M. Distillates are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains and ships, and fuel for jets.

The latest weekly EIA reading for total fuel products supplied to the market was 20.925M barrels versus 20.408M the prior week.

That, based on historical data maintained by the agency, was the highest since December.

U.S. crude exports also surged during the week, rising to 4.543M barrels, or almost 40% above the previous week’s tally of 3.27M