Oil Prices Surge As U.S. Imposes Sanctions Chinese Importers Of Iranian Crude

(RTTNews) - After ending the previous session modestly lower, the price of crude oil showed a substantial move back to the upside during trading on Wednesday.

Crude for May delivery surged $1.14 or 1.9 percent to $62.47 a barrel after dipping $0.20 or 0.3 percent to $61.33 a barrel during Tuesday's session.

The sharp increase by the price of crude oil came the U.S. announced it is designating a China-based independent "teapot" refinery Shandong Shengxing Chemical Co., Ltd. for its role in purchasing more than a billion dollars' worth of Iranian crude oil.

The U.S. is also imposing additional sanctions on several companies and vessels responsible for facilitating Iranian oil shipments to China as part of Iran's "shadow fleet."

Oil prices also benefitted from official data showing China's economy grew more than expected in the first quarter, which helped offset concerns about the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Chinese GDP grew 5.4 percent year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. This was better than economists' forecast of 5.1 percent and was unchanged from the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration released a report showing a modest increase by U.S. crude oil inventories in the week ended April 11th.

The EIA said crude oil inventories crept up by 0.5 million barrels last week after climbing by 2.6 million barrels in the previous week. Economists had expected crude oil inventories to inch up by 0.4 million barrels.

At 442.9 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories remain about 6 percent below the five-year average for this time of year, the EIA added.