oil futures headed higher on wednesday buoyed by speculation that the biden administration may consider refilling the us oil reserve at 80 a barrel and a weekly decline in us gasoline supplies even as crude stocks post an increase traders also assessed a monthly report from the international energy agency the iea cut its outlook for chinas crude demand but also projected that european power producers would boost demand for oil as they switch away from natural gas following russias halt to flows through the nord stream pipeline the energy information administration on wednesday reported that us crude inventories rose by 24 million barrels for the week ended sept 9 the eia also said gasoline stockpiles declined by 18 million barrels last week while distillate stocks rose by 42 million barrels the american petroleum institute late tuesday had reported a weekly crude supply climb of 6 million barrels according to news reports analysts surveyed by sp global commodity insights on average expected the eia to report that crude inventories rose by 12 million barrels they also forecast inventory declines of 16 million barrels for gasoline and 800000 barrels for distillates crude stocks at the cushing okla nymex delivery hub edged down by 200000 barrels for the week the eia said while stocks in the strategic petroleum reserve dropped by 84 million barrels to 4341 million barrels also readhigh fuel costs will continue to contribute to the rise in food prices a few other factors may impact crude in the days and weeks ahead said tariq zahir managing member at tyche capital advisors told marketwatch theres a potential storm tracking towards the gulf of mexico he said storms could disrupt production in the gulf also the biden administration reportedly may be looking to replace oil stocks in the strategic petroleum reserve at 80 a barrel that supports a floor on prices at the 80 level said zahir bloomberg reported on tuesday that the us could begin refilling the strategic petroleum reserve if crude falls to 80 a barrel in addition to refilling storage which has been heavily tapped into this year the move would reportedly also be taken to try to support prices at lower levels so as to try to ensure that we continue to see growth in us oil output us spr releases have helped out the market significantly this year however these releases are set to come to an end in october said warren patterson head of commodities strategy at ing in a note meanwhile in its monthly report the parisbased iea cut its forecasts for chinese oil demand by 400000 barrels a day in 2022 to 15 million barrels a day 420000 barrels a day less than last year for 2023 the iea cut its china demand forecasts by 300000 barrels a day but still expects demand to rise to 16 million barrels a day as covid19 pandemic restrictions are relaxed in europe soaring natural gas prices are expected to prompt power plants to switch to crude providing a boost to oil demand of 700000 barrels day in the six months through march 2023 the iea said oil prices fell tuesday after a hotterthanexpected us august consumerprice index reading dashed ideas the federal reserve would begin to slow interestrate increases instead the data boosted expectations for a 75 basis point rise in the fedfunds rate when policy makers next week with some traders penciling in a 100 basis point move the us dollar soared weighing on commodities priced in the currency efforts by the fed to tame inflation may also lead to a slowdown in energy demand meanwhile naturalgas prices were up sharply on track to post a fifth consecutive session gain expectations of another smallerthannormal weekly rise in us naturalgas supplies may be adding support to the market said christin kelley senior commodity analyst at schneider electric in a daily report the eia will report its weekly data on thursday inventories probably increased by about 71 billion cubic feet last week and if confirmed would be 11 bcf less than the fiveyear average for the same week she said that would cause the storage deficit to increase further from its current 115