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For the week to January 12, U.S. crude inventories are expected to have decreased by 3.5 mil bbls. U.S. gasoline inventories are anticipated to have risen by 3.4 mil bbls, while stockpiles of distillate fuels - which include heating oil and diesel - are expected to have increased by 0.1 mil bbls. U.S. refinery utilization rates are projected to have fallen by 0.6 pct. last week. Later today, the weekly oil inventory report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is published, expect some volatility around the publishing - 17.00 CET.

Late on Wednesday, industry group the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. crude inventories fell last week by 5.1 mil bbls, with crude stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma lower by 3.9 mil bbls. U.S. gasoline inventories rose by 1.8 mil bbls, while distillate stockpiles decreased by 609,000 bbls, the API added.

It still seems that 70$ is a strong psychological level which might be difficult to breach and sustain in the short term.

Nigerian militants threatened on Wednesday to attack off-shore oil facilities within days. "This round of attacks will be the deadliest and will be targeting the deep-sea operations of the multinationals which include Bonga Platform, Agbami, EA Field, Britania-U field and Akpo field," the Niger Delta Avengers said in a statement. The militants said they had planned the attacks after giving up on talks to give their southern region a greater share of the oil revenue it produced. The Avengers and other militant groups last carried out about 17 attacks in 2016 in the Niger Delta and were partly responsible for bringing down Nigeria's crude production from a peak of 2.2 mbpd to nearly 1 mbpd. Such statements show that geopolitical risk is still highly present, and that further disruptions to the global oil supply is still present. Last time the market witnessed such disruptions was last month in Libya as a pipeline was blown up.

Later today, OPEC will publish the monthly oil market report which could also stir some market volatility.