Oil prices rebounded from yesterday's drop (after China stimulus chatter) despite the U.S. Energy Information Administration trimmed its forecast for 2019 petroleum demand slightly in a monthly report released today.

“The Chinese are throwing everything they can" at their economy, said John Kilduff, founding partner at hedge fund Again Capital LLC.

“That’s the big key to oil markets, especially when you have OPEC and Russia starting to rein in production."

API

• Crude -560k (-2.5mm exp)
• Cushing -796k - biggest draw since Sept 2018
• Gasoline +5.99mm
• Distillates +3.214mm

After massive product builds in the last two weeks, API shocked with yet another huge build in Gasoline and Distillates but a rather disappointing (for oil bulls) smaller than expected draw in crude...

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Overall inventories remain near November lows.

WTI was hovering just above $52 ahead of the API print but knee-jerked lower on the smaller than expected crude draw.

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“It was very doom and gloom in December but we had no official data to back that up," Petersen said.

“Now the data that’s coming back is not really that bad. It may be pointing toward a slowdown, but it doesn’t look like a contraction, and those are two very different worlds."