Title: Oil Rises on Growing Concerns About Supply Tightness

Jun 30, 2022 01:46AM ET

By: AnalysisWatch

Oil prices rose in Asia on Thursday morning as concerns over global supply shortages outweighed increases in U.S. gasoline and distillate inventories.

By 1:45 AM ET, Brent oil futures were up 0.36% at $112.84, and WTI crude futures were up 0.22% at $110.02.

"Crude oil rose in early trading following a build in inventories... The drawdown was driven by an increase in refinery throughput at historically high refining margins," ANZ analysts said in a note.

U.S. crude supply data released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed a decline of 2.762 million barrels for the week ending June 24, while U.S. gasoline and distillate inventories rose.

Some analysts believe that further disruptions, such as unrest in producing countries like Libya and Ecuador, could support oil prices.

However, concerns about slowing economic growth continued to hold back price increases.

"Aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks and slowing global economic growth have put pressure on commodity markets recently," he said. U.S. oil reserves and OPEC oil production increases also slowed the oil market's upward momentum, "Tina Teng, an analyst at CMC Markets, told Reuters.

Crude supply data from the American Petroleum Institute released the previous day showed a drop of 3.799 million barrels.