Oil rises following US commercial stocks data

Oil prices rose on Friday after the publication of data on US fuel stocks, indicating a decrease in gasoline and distillates inventories in the country last week, Report informs via Interfax.

The price of March futures for Brent oil on the London ICE Futures exchange was $79.50 per barrel, which is $0.81 (1.03%) higher than the price at the previous session's close. As a result of trading on Thursday, these contracts rose by $0.85 (1.09%) to $78.69 per barrel.

The price of WTI oil futures for February in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) increased by $0.79 (1.07%) to $74.46 per barrel. By the close of the previous trading, the value of these contracts rose by $0.83 (1.14%) to $73.67 per barrel.

US commercial oil inventories rose by 1.69 million barrels last week to 420.65 million barrels, according to a weekly report from the country's Energy Department.

Commodity gasoline stocks decreased by 346,000 barrels to 222.66 million barrels.

Commercial stocks of distillates dropped by 1.43 million barrels to 118.78 million barrels.

Experts anticipated an increase in oil inventories by 1.5 million barrels, a decrease in gasoline inventories by 1 million barrels and a fall in distillate inventories by 1.17 million barrels.

Since the beginning of the week, oil prices have fallen by about 7% due to the increase in COVID-19 incidence in China, clouding the short-term prospects for oil demand in this country.

In turn, signals from the US Federal Reserve System (Fed) regarding the future direction of monetary policy increase concerns about a potential recession, says Trading Economics.