Crude oil futures ticked higher during midmorning trade in Asia Feb. 25 as the market overlooked bearish data from the US Energy Information Administration to focus on optimism over declining COVID-19 infection numbers and vaccine rollouts. Now At 11:14 am Singapore time (0314 GMT), the ICE April Brent futures contract was up 31 cents/b (0.46%) from the Feb. 24 settle at $67.35/b while the NYMEX April light sweet crude contract was up 20 cents/b (0.32%) at $63.42/b. Data from the EIA released late Feb. 24 showed that US commercial crude inventories increased 1.28 million barrels at 463.04 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 19. The build came contrary to analysts’ expectations of a 4.8 million barrel draw, and was attributable to power outages and extreme low temperatures in southern US, which shut up […]