The July 26 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration followed up on the surprisingly good news yesterday on U.S. crude inventories from the American Petroleum Institute.
The numbers from the American Petroleum Institute showed a much bigger than expected draw down of 10.23 million barrels in U.S. oil inventories. That kept the rally in oil prices going and oil futures closed yesterday up 14% from their June 21 close.
Today’s data from the EIA didn’t do anything to damp the oil market’s flaming advance. According to that survey of inventories, the draw down for the week that ended on July 21 was 7.2 million barrels.
That was enough of a drop to send U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate up 1.73% to $48.72 a barrel. The international Brent crude benchmark climbed 1.47% to $50.94 a barrel.
The local high for West Texas Intermediate came on May 23 at $51.47 a barrel. The market looks to have enough momentum for West Texas Intermediate to challenge the $50 a barrel level that has been so hard to breach in 2017.
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