Image credit: Global Risk Management

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Yesterday, the EIA reported that US crude stocks fell by nearly 10 million barrels last week, while gasoline inventories rose by 1.2 and distillate inventories remained unchanged. As possible outages are of great concern, this information led to price spikes. As news reached the market, the WTI rose $2.34, or 3.4 %, to $72.87 per bbl. The contract touched a high of $72.92, which is the highest since November 2014. Yesterday, Brent rose as well and is currently trading at about $77.4.

The inventory reports of next week will include seven days of the Syncude outage, which could cause a draw of the same magnitude, or larger. The Syncrude outage originates from a Canadian Syncrude plant that has been out of service since last week, and is causing a 360 kbpd outage in the U.S. The outage is expected to last throughout July.

Yesterday, the Trump administration eased its stance on curbing Chinese investments in American technologies. President Trump said he will strengthen the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to handle the potential threats from Chinese acquisition of U.S. technology rather than imposing China-specific restrictions on investments in technology. The previously announced tariffs still stand.

Today, the U.S. Q1 GDP Finals are to be released.