Oil futures pare gains after U.S. inventories surge most on record - Reuters

Oil futures pare gains after U.S. inventories surge most on record - Reuters:

Oil prices pulled back Wednesday, with benchmark Brent turning negative as U.S. crude inventories surged the most on record, but the pullback was muted by hopes that a meeting between OPEC and allied producers on Thursday will trigger output cuts.

U.S. crude inventories rose 15.2 million barrels in the week, the most on record, as refiners slashed runs and the storage hub at Cushing filled more quickly than expected, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a weekly report on Wednesday.

Demand has fallen as the coronavirus outbreak forced closures of businesses and schools.

“There are multiple bad angles: Refining utilization. Crude stockpiles. Cushing is crazy - that’s a gigantic number,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York. The Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub, which serves as the delivery point for the New York Mercantile Exchange U.S. oil futures contract, is on pace to be full in three weeks if this week’s gain is repeated, Yawger said.

Brent crude LCOc1 was down 11 cents, or 0.3%, at $31.76 by 11:06 a.m. EDT (1506 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 rose 63 cents to $24.26 a barrel, after earlier trading as high as $25.29 a barrel.