Crude prices higher ahead of OPEC meeting, EIA inventories

Crude oil prices were up Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s scheduled meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, to be held in Vienna, where the cartel is expected to hold production quotas steady.

Ahead of the meeting, the Saudi Arabian oil minister said that there is no need to cut production, although some estimates say that 100 million barrels of crude oil remain in storage on tankers at sea due to huge surpluses.

West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery had added 82 cents to $63.27 per barrel just before the close of floor trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude was up 91 cents to $62.15 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

The weekly US inventories report from the government’s Energy Information Administration is expected to show that crude oil stockpiles were up by nearly 2 million barrels last week while gasoline inventories are anticipated to have dropped by 1.7 million barrels.

The retail price of gasoline in the United States added nearly a cent overnight, to $2.434 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association, their highest prices this year, but some analysts believe that at-the-pump prices will be back to around $2 per gallon by the end of summer.