Crude oil prices hold steady in early trading session

8 Jun 2023 , 09:30 AM

Early Asian trading on Thursday saw little movement in oil prices as investors balanced demand worries about a slowing global economy against an anticipated drop in supply from Saudi output cutbacks.

Brent crude prices were down 1 cent at $76.94 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 5 cents at $72.58 a barrel.

On Wednesday, both benchmarks ended up slightly higher thanks to Saudi Arabia’s pledges for significant output cuts, but price increases are still constrained by rising U.S. gasoline supplies and subpar Chinese export data.

On Wednesday, the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that although fuel product stocks increased, U.S. crude oil stockpiles decreased last week.

The EIA reported that petrol stockpiles increased by 2.7 million barrels in the past week, above analyst predictions of an increase of 880,000 barrels.

In the past week, distillate stockpiles increased by about 5.1 million barrels, above expert expectations of a 1.3 million barrel increase.

Concerns about demand from the top oil consumer in the world were raised by the larger-than-anticipated increase in U.S. fuel stocks, especially given that Memorial Day weekend travel was anticipated to have increased.

While analysts had anticipated a 1 million barrel increase, U.S. crude stockpiles decreased by 451,000 barrels during the week.

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