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Wed 14 Mar 2018, 08:10 GMT

Mixed inventory data and upbeat Chinese economic data


By A/S Global Risk Management.

Michael Poulson, Global Risk Management.
Image credit: Global Risk Management
The weekly oil stocks data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) published last night showed a build in crude oil stocks of 1.15 mio. barrels last week. Gasoline and distillates stocks fell by 1.3 and 4.3 mio. barrels respectively. Now this afternoon's report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) will be followed closely for confirmation/deviation of this trend and some volatility could be expected. Consensus is a build in crude oil stocks, draws in gasoline and distillates stocks.

Today, the monthly oil market report from OPEC is published, likely giving insights to status of the group's compliance to the current oil production cut deal, supply/demand balance and outlook for crude oil market development going forward..

Turning to economic data, overnight Chinese Industrial Production numbers for February came out better than expected at 7.2% (6.2% previous). As China is a huge oil consumer, upbeat economic data tends to be bullish for oil prices as increased activity could spur increased oil consumption. A couple of ECB speeches today and Eurogroup meetings continue. U.S. retail sales data is also published today.

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