Crude prices consolidated on Wednesday after a two-day setback amid concerns that slowing demand and rising Middle East production would extend the global supply glut. July West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil futures were up $0.12 or +0.27% at $44.53. Internationally traded Brent Crude futures were trading at $45.10 per barrel, up $0.13, or +0.30%. Crude oil has gotten off to a shaky start in May after a more than 14% gain in April. Prices are down nearly 6 percent since last Friday. Most of the selling pressure this week has come from worries about rising output from the Middle East and renewed signs of an economic slowdown in Asia. Exports are down because of a weakening Japanese economy, a relapse in China after a few promising signs and a drop in demand from India. The U.S. also has problems of its own. U.S. production has fallen from a peak of over 9.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in summer last year to just over 8.9 million bpd currently. However, crude inventories continue to increase, rising by 1.3 million barrels in the week-ended April 29 to 539.7 million barrels, according to the American Petroleum Institute, enough to meet global demand for almost a week. Oil found support early in the session after the release of the API report that showed a rise of almost double the 750k estimate. Helping to underpin the market was a smaller than expected Cushing build of just 382k barrels versus expectations of +1.3 million barrels. The API report also showed a 1.17 million barrel drawdown in gasoline inventory and a -2.6 million barrel decrease in distillates. The reduction in the stockpiles of gasoline, diesel and heating oil helped support the market and put a short-term end to this week's selling pressure. Lower oil prices also weighed on demand for higher-yielding assets. In Sydney, the ASX 200 was down 1.55 percent, weighed by losses in the energy subindex, down 5.11 percent, and the materials subindex, which was lower by 5.91 percent. Chinese mainland markets were higher, with the Shanghai composite up 0.18 percent, while the Shenzhen composite was higher by 0.487 percent. Wednesday's U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly oil inventory report is expected to show an increase of 1.695 million barrels.
