By: Mahmoud Gamal
Dubai-Mubasher: Global oil prices declined after a surprise weekly build in US crude inventories at a time when the market was expecting drawdowns and the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates for first time since 2006.
Brent crude fell by 3% or $1.26 to reach $37.19 per barrel.
The US crude retreated 5% or $1.83 to $35.52 per barrel.
Crude oil stocks grew by 4.8 million barrels for the week ended December 11, according to weekly inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.
Analysts expected that crude-oil inventories to fall 1.4 million barrels last week, while the American Petroleum Institute projected U.S. crude stockpiles to grew by 2.3 million barrels.
The drop of oil prices is mainly attributed to the rise of US crude inventories and the hike of US interest rates, oil analyst and economist Ahmed Hassan Karam told Mubasher.
The US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates for the first time in ten years. The hike means that rates have been raised to a range of 0.25%-0.5%.
The U.S. dollar rose 0.1% against a basket of international currencies on Wednesday, according to the WSJ Dollar Index.
Translated by: Julian Nabil
