Crude A Touch Lower

Crude oil futures are a touch lower than settlement levels, albeit off worst levels of the session. WTI has shed ~$0.70, while Brent is ~$0.30 softer on the day.

• A RTRS story garnered most of the focus during Asia-Pac hours, noting that "China's state reserve bureau on Wednesday told Reuters that it was working on a release of crude oil reserves and will disclose the details of the move on its website." Although, "the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration declined to comment if the release is related to Washington's request to the world's top consuming nations on tapping oil reserves to cool global energy prices." Japanese & South Korean officials also confirmed similar lines of communication with the U.S., but the same officials pushed back against a coordinated response to the well-documented rise in oil prices, with supply imbalances at the centre of their policy/local law.
• A reminder that both of the benchmarks closed over $2.00 lower on Wednesday, shaking off what appeared to be a relatively bullish weekly DoE inventory report, as focus continued to fall on the potential for coordinated oil stock releases from some of the major oil consuming nations (see follow up to that above) and U.S. President Biden's request that the U.S. FTC look into price gouging in the energy markets.