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Oil prices ended higher as OPEC and allies delayed their Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee meeting to Thursday from Wednesday to allow countries more time for talks offering bullish oil traders some hope that any production increase may be less than expected. While OPEC+ members such as Russia have considered backing an increase in output, Saudi Arabia has exercised caution in the face of growing demand and global spread of the delta variant.

“We’ll see the trading continue to be choppy until Thursday when the actual meeting is held and we get the official decision,” said Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Management.

But for now, while we all await Thursday’s OPEC+ decision, API will be the next trigger move.

API

• Crude -8.153mm (-4.7mm exp)

• Cushing -1.318mm

• Gasoline +2.418mm (-700k exp)

• Distillates +428k (+100k exp)

Very mixed bag in the API with a bigger than expected crude draw (6th weekly draw in a row) and bigger than expected product builds…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI is up 50% this year as the recovery builds and OPEC holds back. It was hovering around $73.40 ahead of tonight’s API data and made modest gains after the print…

Even a larger-than-expected supply boost from OPEC+ will not reach inventories in time to alleviate the tight market, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts including Damien Courvalin and Jeff Currie wrote in a report.

“Ultimately, much more OPEC+ supply will be needed to balance the oil market by 2022,” they said.