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By Michael Poulson, A/S Global Risk Management

Yesterday's weekly oil stocks data from the American Petroleum Institute pointed to a 1.8 million-barrel draw in U.S. crude oil stocks - more than three times as much as expected and the first draw in three weeks; the fifth in three months. Larger- than-expected draws in both gasoline and distillates stocks. Now all eyes will be on this afternoon's EIA oil inventory report. Consensus is a small draw in crude, larger draws on distillates and gasoline inventories.

An unplanned production outage in the North Sea Buzzard oil field also supports oil prices. The Buzzard field production is around 180,000 barrels per day.

OPEC production in March was down 200,000 barrels from February to 32.095 mio. barrels per day (source: Bloomberg). OPEC compliance to the production cut deal which took effect in January is high and talks about extending the deal into the second half of 2017 will commence next month.

Today also brings meeting minutes from the U.S. central bank as well as job report and UK Services PMI.

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A/S Global Risk Management is a provider of customised hedging solutions for the management of price risk on fuel expenses. The company has offices in Denmark and Singapore. For further details about its risk management products and services, please call +45 88 38 00 00 or email hedging@global-riskmanagement.com.