Oil Dips on Inventory Report

The Street, Andrea Tse

Although oil prices gained Wednesday on a spate of bullish China demand news and expectations of more "easy money" to come, the advance was pared down a bit by the market's close on the bearish aspects of a weekly inventory report.

"There were bullish aspects of the [Energy Information Administration] report, but the overall picture was not that supportive, and the market gave back some of its gains by the close," said Citi Futures Perspective energy analyst Tim Evans.

West Texas Intermediate light sweet crude oil for August delivery ended the trading session at $98.05, up $0.62, while the September Brent crude oil contract rose $0.91 to $117.85. The WTI contract hit an intraday high above $99 and Brent futures hit a high of $118.72 in the intraday.

The primary drivers of the rallies were Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke's mid-morning comments about the potential for another round of quantitative easing, or QE3, which would send more so-called "easy money" into the markets and trigger outflows from safe-haven assets such as Treasuries—that should in turn lead to riskier bets on commodities; and better-than-expected second-quarter gross domestic product and June industrial and retail sales readings out of China, the top energy consumer.

"This gives them more leeway for tackling inflation through raising rates going forward," said Summit Energy analyst Matt Smith.

"If you were long oil futures Bernanke had magical words that sent oil and most commodities higher today," commented Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

"But it's probably bad news for consumers because it does put more upward pressure on the week-to-week purchasing needs of fuel."