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Wednesday turned out to be another day of losses in the world of crude oil futures.

Positive sentiment stemming from Tuesday's American Petroleum Industry (API) trade group report revealing a nearly three-times greater-than-expected decrease in crude oil inventories seemed to extend into early Wednesday with both Brent and U.S. crude's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures trading above the $50 a barrel level at one point. However, optimism quickly turned to trepidation after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Petroleum Status Report for the week ending June 17th, 2016 came out. Prior to the EIA data release Wednesday morning, WTI crude for August delivery was trading up 0.7 percent at $50.20 a barrel, but dropped to $49.75 after the EIA data was released.

The EIA report revealed a drop in US commercial crude oil (USO) (UWTI) (SCO) (UCO) (BNO) inventories of about 0.93 million barrels (MMbbls) compared to the previous week, reporting a crude oil inventory of 530.6 MMbbls for the week ending June 17th, 2016. These numbers, in sharp contrast to the massive inventory drop published in the API report and even considerably behind the 1.7 million barrel drop forecasted by S&P Global Platts surveys, reignited fears about oversupply.

In other relevant news, Britain's European Union (EU) referendum is another day closer and continuing uncertainty over what is in store for Britain's EU membership status has not been helping crude oil prices. A fresh poll on Thursday's referendum showed a slight, albeit statistically insignificant, edge in favour of a Brexit result. Brexit has become the term for a referendum result in favour of Britain exiting the EU.

"The Brexit vote is definitely the most significant factor on crude's horizon," says Robbie Fraser, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric. "The market continues to be relatively confident that the remain vote will prevail tomorrow. As such, a vote to stay may only offer slight momentum higher, while a surprise victory for the leave camp would be a significantly bearish factor for oil prices and global markets at large."

Though London voting stations close at 10 pm for today's UK referendum, we do not expect to receive conclusive results until 7 am or later on Friday morning.

In the end, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for August delivery, after trading throughout the day between $48.44 and $50.52 a barrel, fell 74 cents (1.48%) to close at $49.11 US a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and London's Brent North Sea crude for delivery in August, the global benchmark, after trading between $49.20 and $51.24 a barrel throughout the day, fell 74 cents (1.44%) to $49.88 US a barrel.

Today's main influences, the bears and bulls:

The Bears:
- Uncertainty related to the upcoming UK EU referendum.
- Crude oil oversupply fears stemming from much more modest than expected crude oil inventory drops in Wednesday's EIA Petroleum Status Report.

The Bulls:
- Continuing, yet short-lasting, optimism from previous day's crude inventory drops published in the API report.

In the days to come, watch out for the following key catalysts for the crude oil market:

June 23rd
EIA's weekly natural gas storage report
EIA's natural gas weekly update

June 24th
EU referendum results
Baker Hughes's US crude oil rig count
Baker Hughes's US natural gas rig count