Oil futures ticked higher on Thursday, with prices on track to stretch their gains into a third straight trading session.
Price action
- West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery CL.1, +1.75% CL00, +1.75% CLZ22, +1.75% rose $1.30, or 1.5%, to $89.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange following gains in each of the past two trading sessions.
- December Brent crude BRNZ22, +1.30%, the global benchmark, was up $1.19, or 1.2%, at $96.88 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. January Brent BRN00, +1.26% BRNF23, +1.26% rose $1.10, or 1.2%, to $94.89 a barrel.
- Back on Nymex, November gasoline RBX22, +2.85% traded at $2.9731 a gallon, up 2.5%, while November heating oil HOX22, +1.53% added 1.7% to $4.1901 a gallon.
- November natural gas NGX22, -2.78% was nearly 0.1% at $5.602 per million British thermal units on its expiration day. December natural gas NGZ22, -4.12%, which will become the front month at the end of the session, traded at $6.035, down 1.3%.
Market drivers
“Crude prices are again trending higher in what is shaping up to be a bullish week overall,” said Robbie Fraser, manager, global research & analytics at Schneider Electric, in a daily note.
Benchmark crude futures have been “supported by macroeconomic data that showed moderate” U.S. GDP annual growth of 2.6% in the third quarter, he said.
Oil was attempting to build on gains from the previous session even though Energy Information Administration data showed a large jump in U.S. crude inventories, but the rise was smaller than reported by an industry trade group. Supplies of gasoline fell, while U.S. crude exports jumped.
“Exports were up 991,000 to an all-time record 5.129 million [barrels a day]. The big increase in exports is another reason for crude oil to rally after the storage report,” said Robert Yawger, executive director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities, in a note.
Analysts also tied crude gains on Wednesday to an overall pullback by the U.S. dollar. The dollar’s breakneck rally this year has at times acted as a weight on commodities, making them more expensive to users of other currencies.
The dollar headed higher on Thursday, with the ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.42%, a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, up 0.2%, but still down 1.9% for the week.
Also on Thursday, the EIA reported that domestic natural-gas supplies rose by 52 billion cubic feet for the week ended Oct. 21. That compared with a market forecast for an increase of 61 billion cubic feet, according to an estimate from the Dow Jones economic calendar.