The black gold saw its prices consolidating so far in New York ahead of the Fed’s minutes that will be released later on the day after the Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. supplies surged five times as much as analysts forecast.
In fact today’s EIA report showed that the U.S commercial crude oil inventories increased by 4.0 million barrels from the previous week. At 384.1 million barrels while that the total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 5.2 million barrels last week.
Plus finished gasoline inventories increased while blending components inventories both decreased last week and distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.2 million barrels last week and are near the lower limit of the average range for the time of the year.
Accordingly crude is trading so far around $102.65 a barrel recording a high of $102.85 a barrel and a low of $102.02 a barrel.
Now investors all over the world will have their eyes on today’s minutes meeting as it will most probably give a clearer image on the Fed`s monetary policy and its new guidance over interest rates.
Minutes from the latest Federal Open Market Committee will be released later on today. First though, investors will eye speeches from several US policy makers for their take on the state of the economy including the latest employment data .