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Strategic Petroleum Reserve increased from 403.0 million barrels to 403.2 million barrels.Domestic oil production grew from 13.284 million bpd to 13.327 million bpd.Oil prices moved lower as traders reacted to the EIA report.

On August 13, 2025, EIA released its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. The report indicated that crude inventories increased by +3 million barrels from the previous week, compared to analyst consensus of -0.8 million barrels. At current levels, inventories are about 6% below the five-year average for this time of the year.

Total motor gasoline inventories declined by -0.8 million barrels, compared to analyst forecast of -1 million barrels. Distillate fuel inventories increased by +0.7 million barrels from the previous week.

Crude oil imports increased by +958,000 bpd, averaging 6.9 million bpd. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 6.2 million bpd. Rising crude oil imports were the key driver behind the increase in crude inventories.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve increased from 403.0 million barrels to 403.2 million barrels. From a big picture point of view, Strategic Petroleum Reserve has remained mostly unchanged in recent weeks.

Domestic oil production increased from 13.284 million bpd to 13.327 million bpd. A move above the 13.4 million bpd level will signal that domestic oil production is ready to increase at current oil price levels.

WTI oil remained under pressure as traders reacted to the EIA report. Currently, WTI oil is trying to settle below the $62.50 level.

Brent oil pulled back towards the $65.50 level after the release of the report.

Source: FX Empire

Source: cnbc

The likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate cut in September is now seen near 100% after new data showed U.S. inflation increasing at a moderate pace in July and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he thought an aggressive half-point cut was possible given recent weak employment numbers.

Traders in contracts tied to the benchmark federal funds rate on Wednesday put the odds of a quarter-percentage point cut at the Fed's September 16-17 meeting at 99.9%, according to estimates calculated by the CME Group's FedWatch tool that followed the release of July Consumer Price Index data on Tuesday and later comments by Bessent noting that the Fed used fears of a weakening job market as justification for a larger cut last September.

Trump has slammed that cut as politically motivated given the proximity to the November presidential election.

Bessent rooted his argument in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics revisions showing job growth had slowed to a crawl in May, June and July, though initial estimates for May and June showed stronger employment growth that Fed officials used to argue that the labor market remained in good shape.

"If we'd seen those numbers in May, in June, I suspect we could have had rate cuts in June and July. So that tells me that there's a very good chance of a 50 basis-point rate cut," in September, Bessent said in an interview on Bloomberg television.

Source: Reuters

Source: finance.yahoo

US President Donald Trump said he would be speaking to European leaders shortly as he prepares for his summit later this week with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

“Will be speaking to European Leaders in a short while. They are great people who want to see a deal done,” Trump wrote on social media Wednesday.

The call comes as Trump ramps up diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine — now well into its fourth year — with a face—to-face meeting with Putin on American soil.

The sitdown slated for Friday in Alaska has raised worries among Kyiv’s allies that the US and Russian presidents may negotiate a deal that swaps land for peace without Ukraine’s input or leaves Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sidelined or without the security assurances needed to deter further aggression.

Earlier: European Leaders Want to Speak to Trump Before He Meets Putin

Trump has said that there may be “some changes” in land, but has also sought to downplay expectations for the summit, casting it as a “feel-out meeting” and saying that he would confer with Ukrainian and European leaders after his gathering with Putin.

“I’m going to be telling him, ‘You got to end this war. You got to end it,’” Trump said Monday at a White House press conference. “I may leave and say, ‘Good luck,’ and that’ll be the end. I may say this is not going to be settled.”

Trump lashed out at what he said was “very unfair media” ahead of the Putin summit in a subsequent social media post on Wednesday.

“If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal!,” Trump wrote.

Zelenskiy has ruled out Putin’s demand for territory that Moscow does not control as a pre-condition for a ceasefire, saying that he would need to seek constitutional approval for such a move. That explanation appeared to rankle Trump earlier this week.

Trump has indicated that he did not plan to invite Zelenskiy to the summit, saying the next step after the bilateral meeting would be for Putin and the Ukrainian president to meet directly. Trump offered to mediate that conversation, if necessary.

The call with European leaders follows a weekend of diplomacy between US, Ukrainian and European officials. European leaders have said that any peace agreement must “respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity.”

Source: Yahoo Finance

A largely benign US inflation report is bolstering the case for traders wagering that the Federal Reserve will soon cut interest rates, with some seeing an increased possibility of an outsize reduction.

Bets that the Fed will start bringing down borrowing costs next month accelerated on Wednesday, with interest-rates swaps lifting the odds of a cut in September to around 95%. Treasuries gained across the maturities, with the yield on the 10-year note falling four basis points to 4.25%.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged policymakers to use the September meeting to kick off a cutting cycle.

“We could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50 basis point rate cut in September,” Bessent said in a television interview on Bloomberg Surveillance Wednesday. “We should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower.”

For weeks, investors have piled into swaps, options and outright Treasury longs to wager that subdued inflation and weakness in the labor market will allow the Fed to start cutting.

It’s a view that has gained momentum from recent economic releases showing July consumer prices were largely in line with expectations while the US labor market showed surprise weakness in recent month.

That’s also helped fuel bets that the Fed will reduce rates by more than 25 basis points in September. Traders added some $2 million in premium on Tuesday to a position in the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) that would benefit from such a move.

The inflation report “was a bit stronger than we have seen over the prior few months, but lower than many have feared,” said Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock, in a note. “As a result, we expect the Fed to begin cutting rates in September, and it could be justified cutting the Funds rate by 50 basis points.”

Tuesday’s report was far from an all-clear for the Fed. Though a tepid rise in the costs of goods tempered concerns about tariff-driven price pressures, underlying US inflation accelerated in July by the most since the start of the year.

With more than a month remaining until the central bank’s September 16-17 meeting, Treasury bulls will also need to weather another major inflation report as well as key employment data.

“September is not a done deal,” Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors, said on Bloomberg TV. “We do not have the data that puts this one in the bag yet.”

For now, however, bets on a dovish Fed are taking the spotlight. The options trade linked to SOFR September contracts — where premium now stands at roughly $5 million — could pay off as much as $40 million should they price in a 50 basis point rate cut for that month, Bloomberg calculations showed.

Meanwhile in the cash market, investors unwound long positions in the build-up to the inflation data, shown by a survey of JPMorgan Treasury clients covering the week up to Aug. 11.

Source: Bloomberg Europe