Crude oil futures ticked higher in mid-morning trade in Asia June 23 after the American Petroleum Institute reported a large draw in US crude inventories as the market awaited the July 1 OPEC+ meeting. At 10:35 am Singapore time (0235 GMT), the ICE August Brent futures contract was up 38 cents/b (0.51%) from the previous settle at $75.19/b, while the NYMEX August light sweet crude contract was 29 cents/b (0.4%) higher at $73.14/b. The uptick in prices comes after the API late June 22 reported a 7.2 million-barrel draw in US crude inventories in the week ended June 18. Downstream product inventories in contrast continued to trend higher, with the API reporting a 959,000-barrel rise in US gasoline inventories in the week, and a 992,000-barrel rise in distillate inventories. However these builds did not dampen […]