The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a large surprise crude oil inventory build of 6.55 million barrels for the week ending Jan 18, compared to analyst expectations that we would see a small draw in crude oil inventories of 42,000 barrels . Last week, the API reported a crude draw of 560,000 barrels . A day later, the EIA showed that inventories had drawn down 2.7 million barrels from the previous week. In the early trading hours on Tuesday in the run up to today’s release from the API, crude oil prices recovered somewhat from Monday’s economic growth slowdown-driven price slide. But as the trading day drew near its close, prices began falling again as skittish traders balked at Russia’s slight uptick in production in January instead of an expected slowdown per its commitment to cutting production in league with OPEC. At 4:18pm EST on Tuesday, WTI was trading […]