Benchmarks Ease Away From Recent Highs, China Oil Imports Up Strongly In August

Oil has ticked down modestly in Thursday trade so far. Brent sits back near $90.35/bbl, slightly above session lows of $90.32/bbl. This is down 0.25% versus NY closing levels on Wednesday. If maintained this would be the first loss for the benchmark since the start of last week. WTI has followed a similar trajectory, last near $87.25/bbl, off by ~0.30%. If maintained this would end WTI's 9 sessions of straight gains, the longest stretch going back to Jan 2019. Both benchmarks remain comfortably higher for the week to date.

• Official US weekly inventories are due later on Thursday. The API reported earlier that crude inventories fell by 5.5 mln barrels last week. This is likely to be the main macros focus in the space for today's session.
• We had China August trade data earlier, with oil imports strengthening in August, up 20.9% versus August levels. This represented 52.80mln tonnes of crude oil. Oil product imports were weaker, but are much smaller in tonne terms.
• For Brent, bulls remain focused on recent highs above $91/bbl, recent lows rest near $88/bbl.