EIA weekly US oil inventories are due out at the top of the hour. They follow natural gas inventories (which were bearish) because of the US holiday on Monday.
WTI crude is currently up 20-cents to $68.32, which is a bit of a surprise because API inventories at the start of the day were negative for pricing (whether they leaked much earlier is another question).
Expectations for the EIA data are:
- Headline crude -1386K
- Distillates+862K
- Gasoline -497K
API data from late yesterday:
- Crude +5202K
- Distillates +1841K
- Gasoline +1891K
The larger intrigue around oil will be over the weekend, when OPEC+ meets in Vienna. Reuters today cites four source saying a cut is unlikely but that's the same thing they said before the previous surprise cut at the beginning of April.
"At this precise time, no change for the meeting but as usual, depending on the mood of some, everything can change," one OPEC source was quoted as saying.
I think a bigger issue will be OPEC leaning on Russia to follow through with cuts.
