What's happening: West Texas Intermediate futures, the US benchmark for oil prices, and Brent futures, the global benchmark, are now trading at their lowest levels in six weeks on signals that supply constraints could begin to ease soon. In the United States, prices fell sharply Wednesday after oil inventories at a key hub in Cushing, Oklahoma rose for the first time in weeks. But Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil markets at the consultancy Rystad Energy, told me that the biggest factor driving prices right now is the expected release of strategic reserves from the United States and China. That sparked chatter about a coordinated move initiated by the White House to put millions of barrels of oil on the market. That could be from the United States and China together, or through broader action coordinated by the International Energy Agency.

Source: CNN November 19, 2021 00:41 UTC