Oil prices are trading little changed - ING

The oil market traded little changed in the morning session after falling sharply yesterday as oil inventory rose while uncertainty continued over US trade policy. Meanwhile, trading volumes were relatively subdued as the Chinese market has been closed for the Lunar New Year Holidays, ING's commodity experts Ewa Manthey and Warren Patterson note.

US weekly inventory numbers remain fairly bearish

"US weekly inventory numbers from the EIA yesterday remained fairly bearish for the oil market. US commercial crude oil inventories (excluding SPR) increased by 3.5m barrels over the last week, well above the 2.86m barrels increase the API reported the previous day. This was the first weekly build reported since November. When factoring in the SPR, the build was even larger, with total US crude oil inventories rising by 3.7m barrels. Total US commercial crude oil stocks stand at 415m barrels, the highest level since late December."

"In refined products, stocks of gasoline increased by 2.9m barrels, against a forecast for a build of just 0.35m barrels. However, distillate fuel oil stockpiles fell by around 5m barrels last week, compared to the market expecting a drawdown of 2.2m barrels. Meanwhile, refineries operated at 83.5% of their capacity following the declines in East Coast and Midwest refining rates along with lower refining rates on the Gulf Coast. This was down from the refining rates of 85.9% seen in the previous week."