Oil rises on expectations of Fed rate cut, another U.S crude drawdown

Oil prices rose about 2% to a two-week high on Tuesday on optimism the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this week for the first time in more than 10 years, boosting demand expectations in the world’s biggest oil user, Trendreports citing Reuters.

Meanwhile, ahead of weekly data, crude oil inventories in the United States were forecast to have dropped for a seventh straight week.

On its second-to-last day as the front-month contract, Brent LCOc1 futures for September delivery gained $1.01, or 1.6%, to settle at $64.72 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 gained $1.18, or 2.1%, to settle at $58.05.

That put both contracts up for a fourth day in a row to their highest closes since July 15.

For the month, however, both contracts were still set to decline due to lingering worries about oil demand with Brent down over 2% and WTI down less than 1%.

U.S. crude futures for delivery in December 2019 CLZ9 traded near the biggest premium to futures for delivery in December 2020 CLZ9-Z0 in about two months at $3.15 a barrel. Oil producers have been selling the back end of the curve as they hedge future output, leading to the spread widening, traders and brokers said.