Oil moves lower following surprise inventory build
Brent crude rose 8 cents, or 0.2%, to $48.92 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled 8 cents, or 0.2%, lower at $45.52 per barrel.
Oil prices were little changed on Wednesday as investors weighed an unexpected jump in U.S. crude stockpiles against optimism that a fast rollout of a coronavirus vaccine would fuel a recovery in global oil demand.
Prices fell 1% earlier in the session as data showed U.S. crude inventories rose by 15.2 million barrels to 503.2 million barrels last week, according to the Energy Information Administration, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.4 million-barrel drop.
U.S. net imports of crude oil rose by 2.7 million barrels per day last week, the biggest increase on record, as exports plunged.
However, the advent of mass inoculations in Canada and the United Kingdom and the prospect of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving a coronavirus vaccine pushed markets higher following the report.
Reference: CNBC
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