API reports Oil inventory draws – ING

After rallying for three days, ICE Brent and NYMEX WTI were seen trading lower in the early trading session today, even as the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported large crude Oil inventory withdrawals in the US, ING's commodity experts Ewa Manthey and Warren Patterson note.

The rise in distillate stocks provides mixed signals

"Latest data shows that those inventories decreased by 3.4m barrels over the last week, in contrast to the average market expectations of a build of 1.07m barrels. Changes in refined products were mixed, with gasoline inventories falling by 700k barrels, while distillate stocks increased by 1.9m barrels. The rise in distillate stocks provided mixed signals over energy consumption in the country. The more widely followed EIA weekly inventory report will be released later today."

"Meanwhile, recent claims by Ukraine that it attacked the Saratov refinery in its latest strike on Russian energy facilities might help create a floor for Oil prices at lower levels. The Saratov refinery (located in the Volga region) has a design processing capacity of about 140k barrels of crude a day. It is also one of the major suppliers of gasoline and diesel to the European part of Russia."