U.S. crude oil skyrocketed in response to air strikes that killed Iran's Hamas leader, rising since October

Just hours after Israel attacked senior Hezbollah officials in Beirut, Hamas political leader Ismail Hanye was assassinated in Tehran, raising concerns about a possible direct clash between Israel and Iran.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps condemned the assassination by Israel, and Supreme Leader Khamenei stated that it is Iran's duty to punish Israel in retaliation.

Also, since Hanye was the central figure in the Gaza cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the current murder will increase uncertainty.

What further supported crude oil prices was that US crude oil inventories declined for 5 consecutive weeks, and it was a long time since inventories declined for 7 consecutive weeks from 2021/11 to 2022/1.

Commercial crude oil inventories excluding oil reserves for the week up to 7/26 announced by the US Energy Information Administration were 0.4 billion 33 million barrels, down 3.4 million barrels, which greatly exceeded expectations, and fell 4% below the 5-year average for this period.

Gasoline inventories were 0.2 billion 23.8 million barrels, 3.7 million barrels more than expected, which is 3% below the 5-year average.

Capra's petroleum analyst Matt Smith stated that “strong exports offset the decline in refining activity and strong imports, and encouraged the fifth consecutive week of decline in crude oil inventories,” adding that geopolitical risks were the “main driving force” for Wednesday's rise while using this report as “minor support material” for crude oil prices.

The latter half of the session suggested the possibility that the Fed was approaching the first rate cut in September, which was expected to underpin US growth and consumption.

The September Nymex crude oil monthly period (CL1:COM) closed at 77.91 dollars/barrel, which was +4.2% higher than the previous day, and the September Brent crude oil previous month period (CO1:COM) closed at 80.72 dollars/barrel, which was +2.6% higher.

September Nimex Natural Gas (NG1: COM) wrote off the previous day's increase to 2.036 dollars/mmBTU, -4.2% compared to the previous day.

As for crude oil, “China's domestic demand deteriorated,” and in response to the fact that the crude oil import pace in July became “the slowest monthly pace in the past year and a half,” WTI fell 4.4% and Brent fell 6.6%, respectively, and became negative throughout the month.