Oil futures steadied early Wednesday as investors awaited congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell amid worries over tightening monetary policy by major central banks and the outlook for global energy demand.
West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery rose 1 cent to $71.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
August Brent crude, the global benchmark, was down 2 cents at $75.88 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
Back on Nymex, July gasoline fell 1% to $2.584 a gallon, while July heating oil edged up 0.2% to $2.48 a gallon.
July natural gas rose 1.2% to $2.523 per million British thermal units.
Powell will testify before lawmakers at 10 a.m. Eastern. The Fed last week left its policy interest rate unchanged, pausing an aggressive cycle of rate hikes that took the fed-funds rate from near zero to its current range of 5% to 5.25% since March 2022. However, Powell last week also indicated the Fed has more work to do to bring down inflation, while forecasts by individual policy makers pointed to the need for two more quarter percentage point rises in the fed-funds rate this year.
Source : MarketWatch
