Tight After Wednesday's Uptick

WTI and Brent hover around unchanged levels at typing, sitting in the middle of their daily ranges. This comes after the benchmarks lodged minor gains on Wednesday, supported by an uptick in the U.S. equity space and a downtick in the USD, which allowed crude to recoup early losses. Fiscal developments and stronger than expected economic data in the U.S. were a driving force re: broader risk appetite on the day.

• DoE inventory data also gave a helping hand, although it was similar in nature to the API private estimates, which the market had looked through.
• Elsewhere, JBC Energy estimated that OPEC crude output fell 259K bpd in September, with UAE leading the pullback on adjustments surrounding earlier quota violations. Elsewhere, the report suggested that Iraq, another nation due to make compensation adjustments, kept output steady in September, while fellow overproducer Nigeria increased output by 70K bpd.
• Finally, oil worker strikes in Norway continue to garner attention.