With the news of a modest crude inventory draw, announced
by the API, American Petroleum Institute, the price of crude oil recovered
slightly from the losses it suffered on Tuesday.
As of 09:00 GMT, the price of WTI and Brent stood at
$66.89 and $69.43 respectively.
The forecast by the analysts for the week ending 17
August was 1.259 barrels. The API, however, came up with a figure that was
lower than the forecast – just 1.163 million barrels.
Judging by the recent figures, it is difficult to
spot a correlation between the actual API values and the forecasts by the
analysts; it is even harder to find a statistical relationship between the two –
if any.
The US crude inventory data by the EIA, US Energy
Information Administration, meanwhile, is expected today for the same period.
The crude oil markets were rattled to the core when China
admitted that its economy has slowed down, which in turn affected its crude oil
imports. The outbreaks of the new Delta variant of the Coronavirus made the
matters worse for the markets.
The muted activities in the Chinese petroleum sector
were initially attributed to annual refinery cleaning events by some analysts. The
latest growth figures from China, however, show it’s not entirely the case.
China expects that the growth will pick up the
momentum during the next quarter, but admitted that the next year’s growth will
be modest too.
The West and China are at loggerheads for some time
and it has, in turn, bred anxiety in many vital sectors. The latest data shows
it finally takes its toll on the Chinese economy.
The disaster in sales suffered by Huawei, the
Chinese mobile phone giant, is a case in point.
As this is the case, the Chinese economic indicators
will be on the radar of crude oil investors for many more months ahead, as woes
of the world’s top crude oil importer cannot be trivialized.
