Oil plummets as stocks rise and vaccine launches
Oil prices fell for the fifth day Thursday after official data showed an increase in US crude oil and fuel inventories, and current demand overshadowed expectations for a recovery.
Brent crude fell 50 cents, or 0.74%, to $67.50 a barrel by 1150 GMT after dropping 0.82% on Wednesday. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil was down 53 cents, or 0.82%, at $64.07 after shedding 0.3% in the previous session.
Both contracts are down nearly 3% over the past five days.
Short-term developments such as the introduction of vaccines and backlog of US oil inventories raise sensitivity, but the long-term oil outlook remains encouraging.
Yesterday's Federal Reserve meeting bolstered stocks, unemployment is expected to decline as US economic growth is revised upwards.
Wednesday's government data showed US crude inventories rose for the fourth week in a row.
U.S. crude inventories rose by 2.4 million barrels last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday, a day after the American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that there had been a 1 million barrel decline.
The slowdown in some vaccination programs and the possibility of further restrictions to contain the coronavirus have weakened expectations for improvement in fuel use.
The UK said on Thursday that global supply increases mean that vaccine applications will be slower than anticipated in the coming weeks, but it expects deliveries to increase from May.
Although the World Health Organization says Europe should continue to use the vaccine, some European countries have discontinued the use of AstraZeneca due to concerns about possible side effects.
