Sell Oil Signal, As Oil Prices Remain Bearish Despite OPEC, EIA

Oil prices broke below $69 yesterday and today’s retrace higher seems week, so we decided to open a sell Oil signal just a while ago. OPEC finally confirmed the rumours and they’re delaying the production increase planned for October, while the EIA inventories showed a major drawdown, both of which should have sent Oil prices higher. But, Crude Oil is turning bearish as I write and WTI is heading below $70 again.

Crude oil prices were making an effort to rebound today, currently trading close to $70, reflecting a $0.80 or 1.15% increase. The price reached a high of $70.80 and a low of $69.17. OPEC+ has officially decided to delay the planned output increase for October, which had been speculated yesterday. According to a Reuters source, the group will push the production hike by two months, confirming earlier rumors. Despite this, some analysts are raising concerns about a potential rise in global inventories in the first half of 2025. So far this week, discussions around the output delay have had minimal effect on oil prices.

WTI Crude Oil Chart H4 – The Highs Keep Getting Lower

The weekly EIA oil inventory data

• Crude drawdown of -6.873 million vs expected drawdown -0.993M barrels
• Distillates drawdown of -0.371 million vs. expected build of 0.481M barrels
• Gasoline build of +0.848 million vs expected drawdown of -0.730M barrels
• Cushing drawdown of -1.142M vs last week drawdown of -0.668M

The private data released late yesterday showed a large drawdown in Crude stocks which seems to be managing the private API numbers released yesterday:

API Crude Oil Inventories

• Headline Crude: A larger-than-expected drawdown of -7.4 million barrels, compared to the forecast of -1.0 million barrels.
• Distillates: A slight increase of +0.4 million barrels, close to the expected rise of +0.5 million barrels.
• Gasoline: A smaller-than-anticipated drawdown of -0.3 million barrels, versus an expected decline of -0.7 million barrels.
• Cushing: Crude inventories at Cushing saw a drop of -0.8 million barrels.
• SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve): An increase of +1.8 million barrels.

WTI Live Chart