Little Changed In Asia; U.S. Rail Strike Eyed

WTI and Brent are little changed at writing, having traded on either side of neutral levels across Asia-Pac dealing, consolidating around the upper end of their respective ranges established on Wednesday.

• To recap, WTI and Brent briefly rose to their best levels in over a week on Wed after EIA data showed an above-expectations increase in crude inventories, nonetheless rising at a slower pace than last week’s ~8.8mn bbl build. Distillate stockpiles saw a surprise increase, while gasoline and hub stocks fell.
• Both benchmarks operate just shy of best levels for Sep, rallying from eight-month lows observed last Thursday on gains in four of the past five trading sessions.
• A partial easing of COVID curbs in the Chinese city of Chengdu (pop. ~21mn) aided sentiment, coming as China has reported <1K COVID cases daily for a fourth day.
• Elsewhere, the IEA forecast oil consumption from gas-to-oil switching across Oct ‘22 to Mar ‘23 to double from a year prior (to 700K bpd) on increased demand for heating.
• Looking ahead, participants will be keeping an eye on ongoing negotiations to avert rail strikes in the U.S., with the API having previously described a disruption to the rail network as “catastrophic”.