Oil prices traded above the $70 per barrel over the last couple of weeks, close to $80 per barrel since last Friday’s trading session until recently, most crude prices have slipped on reports from the U.S. Energy Information Administration of a sudden rise in U.S. crude stockpiles.
The growing U.S. crude inventories over the past months have become an issue and has pushed oil prices lower offsetting collective efforts of preventing a global oversupply as well as pushing prices of oil higher by various countries and organizations. The rising crude supplies, which began last year in the midst of the ongoing production cuts held by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have prevented oil prices from breaking above the $50 and $60 level.
However, oil prices started to descend and remain above $60 and close to the $70 per barrel level since the beginning of the year largely led by the announcement of the OPEC to extend their agreement by another nine months until the end of the year. Oil prices have remained mostly close to the $70 per barrel level over the last couple of months due to various factors including geopolitical concerns as well as previous threats of U.S. President Donald Trump pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran.
Oil prices pushed past above $70 per barrel just late last week at the aftermath of Trump’s confirmation of withdrawing from the deal placing back heavy sanctions against the country.
While oil prices remained bullish throughout the week, crude price slipped during the early trading session on Thursday after a slight rise in the U.S. oil inventories which rose by 5.8 million barrels last week to a total of 438.1 million barrels following a forecast of a 1.4 million barrel decline.
The West Texas Intermediate crude futures on the New York Stock Exchange lost around 0.4% to trade at $71.56 per barrel following a decline during the previous session as well. Brent crude futures also edged 0.5% lower to trade at $79.43 per barrel but nonetheless close to its recent $80 per barrel high.