LONDON - Oil edged lower on Thursday, unable to shake off the downbeat mood of the last two days in response to a sharp rise in U.S. stockpiles of products such as gasoline, pointing to weak demand during the summer driving season in the United States.
U.S West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 futures were down 19 cents at $56.59. The U.S. benchmark dropped 1.5% in the previous session, and 3% on Tuesday. Data on Wednesday from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed a larger-than-expected drawdown in crude stockpiles last week, but traders focused instead on large builds in refined product inventories dragging prices down.
“Due to the combination of unattractive weekly statistics on U.S. oil inventories from the EIA and sluggish performances from the stock markets Tuesday’s sell-off did not turn out to be a buying opportunity, at least not for the time being,” PVM analyst Tamas Varga said.
It's the same game thats been playing out for decades. They'll manufacture a crisis or enemy to justify raising them again.