Oil remains well bid in Asia as US inventories drop

Oil prices remain well bid in Asia following a rally in the overnight trade on the back of a bullish American Petroleum Institute (API) weekly inventory report. 

At the time of writing, Brent oil traded 17 cents higher at $54.34/barrel. WTI oil traded 22 cents higher at $51.25/barrel. Prices rose on Tuesday despite reports that Libya has returned between 200,000 bpd and 250,000 bpd of crude oil into production. 

Traders cheered the API report, which showed a drawdown of 1.83 million barrels in the US. The last week’s drawdown was only the fifth draw in the last 14 weeks, according to API data. Nevertheless, it helped oil prices regain the bid tone. 

What helped oil was also draw in gasoline inventories of 2.56 million barrels. Distillates also saw a draw of 2.09 million barrels.