A Little Above Wednesday’s Three-Month Lows

WTI and Brent are ~$0.50 firmer apiece at typing, operating comfortably within their respective ranges established on Wednesday. Brent has struggled to make meaningful headway above the $100 handle in Asia-Pac dealing, with worry re: reduced energy demand in the coming quarters taking focus in recent sessions.

• Both benchmarks have risen from their respective three-month lows made on Wednesday but remain >$10 weaker from levels observed in end-June as rising recession worry continues to counter well-documented tightness in global supplies. Underperformance in crude also comes amidst strength in the USD (DXY), with the latter sitting a little below fresh cycle highs made on Wednesday.
• The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) monthly oil report was released on Wednesday, with the agency tweaking crude demand growth forecasts for 2022 and 2023 by -100K bpd apiece, citing “weaker-than-expected oil demand growth in advanced economies”. A note that this comes after OPEC’s own demand forecast issued earlier this week (unchanged for ‘22, lowered for ‘23).
• The latest round of U.S. EIA inventory estimates pointed to a surprise ~3.3mn bbl build in crude stockpiles, coming after the >8mn bbl build observed last week. Meanwhile, gasoline, distillate, and Cushing hub stockpiles inventories increased.