Fed Chair Tells Congress Interest Rates Will Continue to Rise
March 8, 2023
The API inventory update called crude oil down 3.835 million barrels, gasoline inventories up 1.840 million barrels, and distillates up 2.927 million barrels.
The average estimates for today’s DOE inventory report are crude up 120,000 barrels, gasoline down 1.801, and distillates down 895,000 barrels.
The Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, in his congressional testimony said that interest rates must be raised faster and higher to lower inflation. This caused the outlook for interest rate to go higher, and rate traders expect interest rates to end 2023 at around 5.5% up from a forecast of 5.38%. Some see rates peeking out as high as 6%.This was bad economic news and energy prices were down in yesterday’s trading.
The EIA in their latest Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO) raised world petroleum supplies but also raised world petroleum consumption by a higher amount. Net affect was supportive to prices.
China custom data reported that crude oil imports fell by 10.2% for January-February which was much higher than the 5.1% drop expected by economist. China oil imports fell 1.3% year over year.
The average estimate for today propane inventory update is for stocks to decline by 1.84 million barrels.