Brent updated its annual maximum on Wednesday at $ 71.76 per barrel. After that, balck gold corrected to $70.6. The local support is the upper line of the medium-term price channel, where the asset has been trading since the end of February. Bulls broke this channel in early April and now its upper line is essentially a local trend line. If oil grows even by the size of the channel mentioned above, the struggle between buyers and sellers will go beyond $73. Although it is quite possible that this is not the limit for the current uptrend.
The local maximum was updated after the EIA released its data on US crude oil inventories. They rose by 7.03 million barrels for the third week in a row, with a forecast of just 2.29 million barrels. It seems like these figures should have lowered the quotes locally, but the gasoline inventories fell by 7.71 million barrels, compared with the expectations for a draw of 2.15 million. This forced traders into buying. The agency also published the production levels in the United States, which remained at the level of the previous week, 12.2 million barrel per day (b/d).
The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects oil consumption growth in 2019 to rise by 1.4 million b/d up to 100.6 million b/d. However, OPEC countries in March fulfilled their obligations under the agreement to reduce oil production by 153%, according to the agency’s monthly report. In particular, Saudi Arabia has reduced production to 9.82 million b/d, which is the lowest level in two years. Also Iraq actively reduced production last month by 120 thousand b/d, to 4.54 million. In general, OPEC countries, including non-members (Iran, Libya and Venezuela), reduced their production in March by 550 thousand b/d - to 30.1 million b/d.