(RTTNews) - The price of crude oil edged up Thursday morning as traders await weekly inventories data from the EIA. Global equities rose this morning, supporting oil prices.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for August delivery were up $0.46 to $74.53 a barrel. Yesterday, oil snapped its 7-day losing streak to recover from its 4-week low after the API's data revealed a bigger-than-expected draw down in U.S. crude inventories.
Data from the API revealed that U.S crude inventories fell by 7.26 million barrels for the week ended July 2. Gasoline inventories dropped by 191,000 barrels and distillate stocks fell 1.02 million barrels. Analysts were expecting crude inventories to dip by only 3.5 million barrels.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department yesterday raised its outlook for global oil demand in 2010 to 85.82 million barrels a day from 85.51 million barrels a day projected earlier in June, an increase of 1.9% from 2009. The department also upped its average oil price forecast to $78.69 a barrel from $61.66 a year ago.
Global equities rose after the IMF raised its global growth forecast. The IMF raised its 2010 world growth forecast to 4.6% from 4.2% in April. Notably, it raised its growth forecast for China to 10.5% from 10% in April, for Japan to 2.4% from 1.9% and for India to 9.4% from 8.8%.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar was lingering near its 8-week low versus the euro and strengthening against the British pound. As widely expected, the Bank of England left its interest rate unchanged at a record low of 0.5% today. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged at a record low of 1% for the fourteenth straight month.
Traders will look to weekly crude oil inventories data from the EIA, due out today during market hours. Analysts expect a 1.8-million-barrel fall in crude oil inventories.
Also, data on weekly jobless claims from the Labor Department and the consumer credit report for May from the US Federal Reserve will be eyed. Economists expect that jobless claims declined to 460,000 during the week.
