Crude Waiting On Direction From Fed Minutes

MNI (Australia) - Oil prices have been range trading today after falling on Tuesday. The market is waiting for direction on Fed policy from the minutes published later. A more hawkish tone to the Fed has been weighing on crude this month. Brent is down 0.2% to $82.85/bbl and WTI -0.2% to $76.20. The USD index is flat.

• Both Brent and WTI have been trading in a range of less than a dollar and below their 50-day simple moving averages. The oil price outlook is neutral for now.
• Data showed that Russian exports have been strong over the last 4 weeks despite its announcement to cut output by 500kbd. 3.2mbd are being shipped to China, India, Turkey and others, which is the highest since data began being recorded at the start of 2022, according to Commerzbank (DJ). It appears that the increased demand for oil by China since it reopened is being met by Russia, thus limiting the upside for prices.
• The market will be focused on the FOMC meeting minutes released later and Fed Williams’ discussion of inflation for some direction on policy. There is also the delayed API inventory data but there is little in the way of economic data.