Oil rises driven by falling reserves in the United States

The prices of the Petroleum rose for the second day in a row on Wednesday after a drop in crude oil reserves by U.S higher than expected.

A barrel of Brent from the North Sea for February delivery gained 1.77% to finish at $ 75.29 in London.

Meanwhile, in New York, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for the same delivery gained 2.30% to 72.76 dollars.

Commercial crude oil reserves in U.S they fell again last week more than anticipated, according to data released Wednesday by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA).

In the week ending December 17, crude inventories fell 4.7 million barrels (mb) to 423.6 million, when analysts expected a more moderate decline of 2.5 million.

This surprising figure pushed crude prices that had already opened in positive.

“It’s a major drop,” said Robert Yawger, head of energy futures at Mizuho Securities. That attracted the attention of speculators, he said.

These traders bought back after pushing prices on Tuesday, according to the analyst. WTI thus rose 6.63% in two days after falling on Monday.

Commercial crude oil reserves are 8% lower than their average level of the last five years in the same period.

“The sharp drop in crude oil reserves was offset by the significant rise in gasoline reserves, with a significant drop in demand,” explained Matt Smith, head of oil analysis for Kpler.

Gasoline reserves increased 5.5 million barrels, compared to 650,000 barrels expected by analysts.

The demand for petroleum products fell significantly to 20.4 million barrels per day (mbd) in the United States, compared to 23.1 mbd the immediately previous week.