Crude oil prices held steady before Thanksgiving as investors awaited OPEC+'s next policy decision and a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire lowered risk premiums. The group will likely delay production increases until its Sunday summit.
Despite refineries improving capacity utilization, U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell more than predicted last week as imports offset domestic supply, according to the Energy Information Agency. Commercial crude stockpiles fell 1.8 million barrels to 424.4 million for the week ending Nov. 22, 5% below the five-year average.
Both remained below their five-year averages, gasoline inventories rose 3.3 million barrels to 212.2 million barrels and distillate fuel stocks rose 416,000 barrels to 114.7 million barrels.
The Cushing delivery hub reduced stockpiles by 909,000 barrels to 24.1 million.
Front-month Brent oil closed at $72.83 and NYMEX crude at $68.72 in January. Despite a mixed December temperature prediction, January natural gas futures slid 7.6% to $3.204 per million BTUs.
AAA expects record Thanksgiving traffic due to low gasoline prices. US regular gasoline prices average $3.07 a gallon, down from $3.25 a year ago. Petrol prices have declined for six weeks, according to GasBuddy petroleum research chief Patrick De Haan.
"As Americans prepare to hit the road for Thanksgiving, we're seeing the lowest national average price of gasoline since 2021, with a far better economic picture than when gas prices were last this low," said the expert.
