Crude sits lower than settle with WTI & Brent...>

OIL: Crude sits lower than settle with WTI & Brent $1.00 softer at writing.

- U.S. President Trump stopped short of fully laying the blame re: the

well-documented attacks on major Saudi crude facilities with Iran (despite his

"locked and loaded" tweet), but he did intimate that he believes that the Gulf

state was behind the attack. This comes as various members of Congress, Sec. of

State Pompeo & several source reports pointed to the Gulf state as the culprit.

Trump's lack of "triggerhappyness" & his seeming willingness to still engage in

talks with Iran likely allowed crude to pull back in post-settlement trade.

- Source reports continue to point to weeks/months re: a timeline for Saudi

Aramco restoring full production at the facilities that were hit by the attacks.

Meanwhile, the likes of the U.S., Japan & South Korea noted that they will

release oil reserves, if necessary, although such moves aren't seen as imminent,

as several bodies point to a "well-supplied market," at least for the time

being. Obviously a more prolonged outage at the Saudi facilities would test that

theory.

- Weekly API inventory data will attract interest later today.