On Thursday, the price of oil continues to rise, despite the appearance of quite alarming signals. The current Brent quote is $84.75, North American WTI oil is trading near $82.50 per barrel. Yesterday, industry statistics from the US Department of Energy were presented, and the data came out somewhat ambiguous. In particular, according to the weekly report, oil reserves in the United States decreased by 4.6 million barrels, which turned out to be better than forecasts. Production decreased by 100 thousand b/d to 11.7 million b/d. At the same time, gasoline stocks jumped by 8 million barrels at once, exceeding the average level for 3 years. Moreover, the level of oil refining remained stable, and the loading of the refinery even decreased slightly, from 89.8% to 88.4%. This may mean that the growth of gasoline stocks is associated with the weakness of demand. If this turns out to be a temporary phenomenon, then oil prices will remain high. Otherwise, alarm signals may begin to put pressure on oil prices. Brent and WTI are supported by the general weakness of the US dollar after the release of inflation data. The growth of consumer prices in the country reached 7% (in November, inflation was 6.8%), which was the highest since 1982. Against this background, the DXY dollar index showed an impressive drop, updating two-month lows.
