Oil prices gain on falling crude inventories

LONDON, January 29, 2020 – Oil prices gained on Wednesday in Asia after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that stockpiles of US crude fell sharply last week.

US Crude Oil WTI Futures gained 1.1% to $54.08 by 1:18 AM ET (05:18 GMT), International Brent Oil Futures rose 1.1% to $59.44.

In its weekly report, the API said that oil inventories posted a drop of 4.3 million for the week ended Jan. 24, compared with build of 1.6 million reported last week.

Analysts expect the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to say later today that crude stockpiles rose by 460,000 barrels last week, from a drop of 405,000 during the previous week to Jan. 17.

For gasoline stockpiles, the EIA is expected to report a rise of 1.17 million barrels, extending the previous week’s build of 1.74 million.

On the distillates front, expectations are that inventories fell by 1.25 million barrels, after the previous week’s drop of 1.19 million.

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