Investing.com -- Oil prices fell Wednesday, with U.S. crude backing off from the key $90-per-barrel mark, after the Federal Reserve warned of at least one more rate hike before the end of the year, offsetting a weekly petroleum inventory report that showed draws all around.

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude for delivery in November settled at $89.66 per barrel, down 82 cents, or 0.9%, on the day. The U.S. crude benchmark rose to $91.05 earlier in the session, after reaching $92.43 on Tuesday, its highest since November 2022.

London-traded Brent settled at $93.53 a barrel, down 81 cents, 0.9%. The global crude benchmark rose to $94.70 earlier in the day, after a 10-month high of $95.94 on Tuesday.

“The closer we get to $100 Brent, the more nervous some traders may get which may show more clearly in momentum indicators,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA. “And the Fed in particular may have contributed to some of (this)”.

Fed holds rates as expected but warns of at least one more hike by year-end

The Fed’s policy-makers, as widely expected, kept interest rates unchanged at their meeting on Wednesday, after 11 previous hikes that added 5.25 percentage points to a prior base rate of just 0.25% in February 2022.

But they maintained plans to have a rate hike before the end of the year in their bid to bring inflation back to Fed’s long-desired target of 2% per annum from current levels of above 3%.

"We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate," Powell told a news conference after announcing the Fed's latest decision on rates. "The fact that we decided to maintain the policy rate at this meeting doesn't mean we have decided that we have or have not at this time reached that stance of monetary policy that we are seeking."

For context, the headline reading for the U.S. Consumer Price Index rose for the second month in a row in August, reaching a year-on-year growth of 3.7% from 3.2% in July.

That was largely due to high pump prices of gasoline which accounted for more than half of the increase — a phenomenon that could put renewed pressure on inflation fighters at the Fed. The central bank’s desired inflation remains at a max 2% per year and it has vowed to get there with more rate hikes if necessary.

The Fed aside, an interest rate decision in China played out largely as expected. The Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are also set to decide on interest rates this week.

U.S. crude, fuel stockpiles down last week

U.S. stockpiles of crude oil and fuel products fell across the board last week as exports surged and imports fell amid a cutback as well in refining activity as the busy summer driving period ended, the government reported Wednesday.