Oil prices fall slightly, Brent $85.63 per barrel

Oil prices eased slightly on Friday after rising in the previous session on data on falling US inventories.

Commercial oil inventories in the United States last week fell by 2.55 million barrels, the country’s Energy Department announced Thursday. Commercial gasoline stocks fell by 2.28 million barrels, distillate stocks by 1.73 million barrels.

The cost of August Brent futures on London’s ICE Futures exchange as of 8:20 a.m. is $85.63 a barrel, which is $0.08 (0.09%) lower than at the close of the previous trade. On Thursday, the price of these contracts increased by $0.64 (0.8%) to $85.71 per barrel, the highest since April 30.

August WTI futures in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell $0.06 (0.07%) to $81.23 a barrel by this time. As a result of the previous session, the value of these contracts increased by $0.58 (0.7%) to $81.29 per barrel.

Since the start of this week, both Brent and WTI are up about 4%.

The oil market is supported by signals of rising demand for petroleum products in the country, in addition to data on falling inventories in the United States. According to the American Automobile Association, a record number of Americans will be traveling this year during the US Independence Day holiday.

“Overall, the inventory data shows that the oil market is down,” said Vivek Dhar, an analyst at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, quoted by Bloomberg. – “The key risk that could lead to a drop in oil prices in the near term is the possibility of weaker than expected oil demand growth in China.

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