Oil futures ticked higher early Thursday, attempting to build a three-day winning streak.
Price action
-
West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery
CL.1,
+0.42% CLZ22,
+0.42%
rose 47 cents, or 0.5%, to $88.38 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. -
December Brent crude
BRNZ22,
+0.42% ,
the global benchmark, was up 47 cents, or 0.5%, at $96.16 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. January Brent
BRN00,
+0.38% BRNF23,
+0.38%
rose 43 cents, or 0.4%, to $94.22 a barrel. -
Back on Nymex, November gasoline
RBX22,
-0.28%
was little changed at $2.899 a gallon, while November heating oil
HOX22,
-0.63%
fell 0.5% to $4.191 a gallon. -
November natural gas
NGX22,
+0.89%
was off 0.1% at $5.60 per million British thermal units.
Market drivers
Oil was attempting to build on gains from the previous session that came after government data showed a large jump in U.S. crude inventories, though the rise was smaller than reported by an industry trade group. Supplies of gasoline and distillates fell, while U.S. crude exports jumped.
“Exports were up 991,000 to an all-time record 5.129 million [barrels a day]. The big increase in exports is another reason for crude oil to rally after the storage report,” said Robert Yawger, executive director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities, in a note.
Analysts also tied crude gains on Wednesday to a broad pullback by the U.S. dollar. The dollar’s breakneck rally this year has at times acted as a weight on commodities, making them more expensive to users of other currencies.
The dollar was bouncing higher on Thursday, with the ICE U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, up 0.4% Thursday, but down 1.7% for the week.
