Oil Prices Continue to Rise Due to Soaring US Fuel Demand and Russia's Saber-Rattling

Brent oil futures closed up $4.14, or 4%, at $108.78 a barrel, adding to Tuesday's rise of 6.3 percent.

The New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude oil benchmark in the United States concluded the day up $3.65, or 3.6 percent, at $104.25. It increased by 6.7 percent in the previous session.

Crude prices continued their rally on Tuesday as China relaxed some of its most strict Covid shutdown measures in two weeks, raising prospects for an increase in energy demand in the world's second largest oil user.

Oil was also aided in the previous session by the OPEC+ alliance's warning that its non-Russian members cannot — or would not — compensate for Russian output lost as a consequence of Western sanctions.

Wednesday's gain was fueled by increased gasoline use in the United States, as shown by weekly energy inventory data issued by the Energy Information Administration, or EIA.

Apart from the increase in gasoline and diesel prices for automobiles and trucks, Delta Airlines (NYSE:DAL) also cited customer acceptance of higher tickets as a way to offset expenses, implying that demand for jet fuel would increase as well.

New geopolitical concerns arising from the Russia-Ukraine dispute boosted the market's upside, with Moscow threatening that any assault on its territory would be met by attacks on locations where such decisions were taken, including Kyiv.

"Oil prices seem to be extremely comfortable above the $100 barrier, since US and Chinese demand appears to be improving," said Ed Moya, an analyst at online trading platform OANDA.

According to the EIA, gasoline stockpiles, America's most utilized petroleum commodity, are low. The week ending April 8 had a 3.65 million barrel reduction, compared to a 2.04 million barrel fall the prior week ending April 1. Last week, analysts surveyed by Investing.com expected a dip of only 388,000 barrels.

Stockpiles of distillates, which are converted into diesel for trucks, buses, trains, and ships, as well as jet fuel, decreased 2.9 million barrels last week, compared to a rise of 771,000 barrels the week before. Analysts had anticipated a weekly fall of 515,00 barrels.

The fall in gasoline products mitigated any gloomy emotion generated by the largest weekly rise in US oil stocks in more than a year as a result of massive withdrawals from the country's emergency reserves.

Last week, crude stocks increased by 9.4 million barrels, compared to 2.4 million the prior week. According to the EIA's historical data, it was the largest weekly increase in oil stocks since the week of March 5, 2021.

The construction occurred in the context of a weekly release of at least 3.0 million barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, approved by the Biden administration to address a supply shortage exacerbated by the West's sanctions against Russia. According to EIA statistics, the US imported no crude oil from Russia for the second consecutive week.

Analysts surveyed by US news organizations had forecast an average build of 2.4 million barrels for the week ending April 8.

"Oil inventories were the greatest surprise, climbing much over estimates" despite the SPR releases, ForexLive analyst Greg Michalowski said.

In November, President Joe Biden started tapping the SPR to supply US refiners with oil lent from the reserve that they would not have to pay for but would have to return within a certain time period. The president believed that by doing so, there would be fewer oil transactions on the open market, resulting in lower prices for crude and refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel.

Previously, the Biden administration authorized the release of 30 million barrels from the SPR in March and another 50 million barrels in November, in collaboration with other oil-consuming nations such as China, Japan, India, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

However, the administration's largest SPR release will occur in May, when it will issue 180 million barrels from the reserve. Another 60 million barrels are expected from additional International Energy Agency member nations' reserves.

However, the government's measures have had little impact on energy prices so far, with a barrel of oil maintaining above $100 a barrel and a gallon of gasoline hovering around $4, not far from March's record highs around $4.30. This is because refiners have been producing more petroleum products than typical at this time of year, resulting in unusually high consumption.