This week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated the inventory draw for crude oil to be 3.089 million barrels. U.S. crude inventories have shed some 60 million barrels since the beginning of the year. Analyst expectations for the week were for a build of 2.093-million barrels for the week. In the previous week, the API reported a draw in oil inventories of 747,000 barrels , compared to the 1.667-million-barrel draw that analysts had predicted. Oil prices had been trading up by more than 3% on Tuesday in the run-up to the data release as earlier concern about the Omicron variant faded into the landscape of OPEC+’s bullish outlook that prompted the group to plan on increasing production in January by another 400,000 bpd. By 3:00 p.m. EST WTI had risen more than 3% to $71.96—a more than $5 per barrel increase since this time last week. Brent was trading […]