By David Ho
Investing.com – Oil was up on Wednesday morning in Asia, bolstered by a larger-than-expected drawdown in U.S. crude stockpiles.
Brent oil futures inched up 0.07% to $99.53 by 11:12 PM ET (3:12 AM GMT) and crude oil WTI futures inched up 0.38% to $95.34.
Tuesday’s U.S. crude supply data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) showed a fall of about 4 million barrels for last week.
Investors now await crude supply data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, due later in the day. That is four times the 1 million barrel decline analysts predicted in a Reuters poll.
Gasoline inventories fell by 1.1 million barrels against expectations of a build of 3.5 million barrels, according to API data.
Anticipation of a tighter gas squeeze in Europe from Wednesday also squeezed prices up after Russia’s Gazprom (MCX:GAZP) said it would cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany to a fifth of capacity.
In addition, European Union countries approved a weakened emergency plan to curb demand, after striking compromise deals to limit reductions for certain countries.
Source:investing.com