Oil prices stabilize as US crude stockpiles rise amid supply uncertainty
Oil prices steadied following a series of modest gains, as an industry report highlighted another increase in US crude stockpiles, adding to the ongoing uncertainty over global supplies.
Brent crude slipped below $76 a barrel after a three-day streak of advances, while West Texas Intermediate was around $72, News.Az reports, citing Bloomberg.
The industry-funded American Petroleum Institute reported a 3.3 million-barrel increase in US commercial inventories last week, which would be the fourth week of builds if confirmed by official data later on Thursday.
Crude has risen this week on concerns about tighter supply, as OPEC+ looks set to push back a production increase, exports from Kazakhstan were cut by a Ukrainian drone strike, and the Group of Seven nations mulled a tighter price cap on Russian oil. However, trading has calmed after a tumultuous start to the year, with a gauge of implied volatility declining as the market becomes increasingly numb to the array of changes that US President Donald Trump is seeking to implement.
Meanwhile, Trump called his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy a dictator, compounding fears that a deal to end the three-year-old war with Russia will be reached without Kyiv’s involvement. Any peace agreement could impact the status of currently sanctioned barrels from Russia.
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