Comments
Concerns over supply of crude oil in the already tight global markets and decline in crude oil inventories in the US helped crude oil futures trade higher on the global exchanges on Thursday morning.
At 10:05 am on Thursday, July Brent oil futures were at $110.83, down by 0.98 per cent, and July crude oil futures on WTI were at $108.19, up by 1.07 per cent.
May crude oil futures were trading at ₹8,582 on Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) in the initial hour of Thursday morning against the previous close of ₹8,510, up by 0.85 per cent; and June futures were trading at ₹8,407 against the previous close of ₹8,320, up by 1.05 per cent.
Though many countries across the globe are expecting an economic slowdown, the proposed European Union (EU) move to ban the import of Russian crude oil over its war with Ukraine helped crude oil futures gain momentum. The global markets are already facing tight supplies as far as supply of crude oil is concerned. Any move to impose a complete ban by EU on Russian oil imports would lead to further supply constraints in the market.
Onus on EU summit
However, not all EU members are in favour of imposing a complete ban on Russian crude oil import as it would impact their economy also. According to market reports, the scheduled summit of EU on May 30-31 is likely to take a decision in this regard.
Meanwhile, the crude oil inventories in the US declined for the week ending May 13. The Weekly Petroleum Status Report of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) for the week ending May 13, which was released on Wednesday, said the US commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 3.4 million barrels from the previous week. At 420.8 million barrels, US crude oil inventories are about 14 per cent below the five-year average for this time of year.
The EIA report also noted the US crude oil imports averaged 6.6 million barrels per day last week, up by 299,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.3 million barrels per day, 4.7 per cent more than the same four-week period last year.
June natural gas futures were trading at ₹644.90 on MCX in the initial hour of Thursday morning against the previous close of ₹658.30, down by 2.04 per cent.
Guar gum skids
On the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), June steel long futures were trading at ₹53,050 in the initial hour of Thursday morning against the previous close of ₹52,410, up by 1.22 per cent.
June guar gum futures were trading at ₹11,645 on NCDEX in the initial hour of Thursday morning against the previous close of ₹11,784, down by 1.18 per cent.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.