Oil prices rise amid decline in US inventories

Global oil prices rose by more than 1% on May 19 morning on data from the US Department of Energy on the unexpected decline in its reserves, Report informs referring to the auction data.

The price of July futures for Brent crude rose by 1.39% to $110.63 per barrel, and the July futures for WTI increased by 1.01% to $108.12.

Optimism in the oil market on May 19 is buoyed by the US Department of Energy statistics on the reduction of commercial oil reserves for the week to May 13 by 3.4 million barrels, to 420.8 million barrels. At the same time, analysts, on the contrary, expected an increase of 1.4 million.

However, the growth in the oil market may soon be over. According to Wall Street Journal analyst Stephen Innes, this is a very volatile market and there are plenty of reasons why traders might be looking to sell in the current environment. Thus, there is a possibility of Venezuelan oil appearing on the market, the expert notes.

On May 17, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez confirmed media reports that the US had approved the resumption of operations in the South American country for US and European oil companies.