US oil inventories are piling up and putting pressure on oil prices. 

A barrel of the European reference oil, Brent, costs USD 79.62 on Thursday morning compared to USD 79.81 on Wednesday afternoon. At the same time, US WTI oil is trading at USD 74.11 compared to USD 74.59 on Wednesday afternoon.

While the unrest in the Red Sea, where several ships have been attacked by the Houthi movement from Yemen and have since changed their route to sail south of Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, continues, the focus of traders on Thursday is instead directed towards an unexpected build-up in US oil stocks.

Last week, oil stocks in the US rose by 2.909 million barrels, while according to Bloomberg News, a drop of 2.3 million barrels was expected. At the same time, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), announced that oil production last week rose to 13.3 million barrels per day, compared to the record level of 13.2 million barrels per day the week before.

”Market focus is again on sluggish global demand as the impact of the Red Sea is seen as limited as long as it does not spread to the Strait of Hormuz,” Tsuyoshi Ueno, senior economist at NLI Research Institute, told Reuters.

”A build-up in US oil inventories and record oil production are adding to the pressure,” he adds.

(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Katrine Gøthler)