Very tight ranges in play for crude, with WTI...>

OIL: Very tight ranges in play for crude, with WTI and Brent a few cents shy of

their respective settlement levels. That comes after marginal upticks for both

major benchmarks on Wednesday, in a session that was relatively bereft of crude

specific headline flow, save the weekly inventory reports.

- The DoE inventory allowed crude to reverse API inventory estimate inspired

losses. DoE headline crude inventories provided a relatively in line with exp.

drawdown, which was at odds with the reports that pointed to a surprise, and

relatively substantial, headline build in crude stocks in Tuesday's API print.

Elsewhere, the DoE inventories revealed larger than expected builds in

distillate and gasoline stocks, as well as a draw in stocks at the Cushing hub

(the product builds in the DoE metrics were more restrained than in the API

estimates). The DoE darta also revealed steady production and refinery

utilisation figures.

- Elsewhere, Wednesday saw a panel of Canadian judges reserve decision, "after

hearing arguments from indigenous groups that the Canadian government had failed

to properly consult them on expanding its oil pipeline," per RTRS.