Oil fell, compounding a monthly decline, after U.S. crude inventories were said to rise by more than expected. Futures in New York fell 0.6 percent, set for the first monthly drop since February. On Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report a 1 million barrel increase in crude stockpiles, double the gain forecast in a Bloomberg survey of analysts. Prices have declined about 4 percent since Saudi Arabia and Russia last week proposed to phase out supply curbs by OPEC and its allies. Click Read More below for additional information.

American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.7% in June after rising 0.3% in May. In June, the index equaled 120.1 (2015=100) versus 116.9 in May. “June’s jump tells me a couple of things: first, the transition in the freight market from spot back to contract continues. ATA’s tonnage index is dominated by contract freight, so while the spot market has slowed as freight softens, contract carriers are backfilling those losses with loads from shippers reducing spot market exposure," said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. "Essentially, the market is transitioning back to pre-pandemic shares of contract versus spot market. “Second, and perhaps equally important, while economic growth is expected to be soft overall in the second quarter, the goods-economy wasn’t as bad as feared," he said. May’s increase was revised down from our June 21 press release.

West Texas Intermediate futures added 0.4 percent. Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said there’s support in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to deepen output curbs by about 1 percent. Still, Iraq has failed to deliver the supply cuts it committed to under the current agreement. U.S. refiners are delaying scheduled maintenance as they resume operations after Hurricane Harvey, supporting demand for crude. Iraq’s suggestion “has a minor influence on prices -- if it would have come from Saudi Arabia, it would probably have had a bigger impact,” said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG in Zurich. Click Read More below for more of the story.