Slightly Lower In Asia

WTI is -$0.60 and Brent is -$0.30 at typing, both operating a little below their respective session highs made on Wednesday.

• To recap, both benchmarks closed ~$4 higher on Wednesday, hitting one-week highs late in the session as worry re: tightness in global supply continues to build.

• To elaborate, the International Energy Agency on Wednesday estimated that ~3mn bpd of Russian oil would be removed from global markets in May, double the decline currently predicted for April, effectively projecting that the impact of sanctions and buyer aversion on Russian crude exports will only kick in from next month onwards.
• Elsewhere, a note that IEA and OPEC data on production figures for the latter crossed earlier this week, pointing to the group missing its collective output increase target for March and underscoring well-documented concerns re: the ability of some OPEC members to hit production quotas.
• U.S. EIA data crossed on Wednesday, with little initial reaction observed in major crude benchmarks despite a larger than expected (~9.4mn bbl build vs. 256.3K BBG median) build in U.S. crude inventories and an increase in hub stocks. The data release mostly corroborated Tuesday’s reports on the latest round of API inventory estimates, with larger than expected drawdowns in distillate and gasoline stockpiles observed.