Overview
- WTI traded near $62 and Brent around $66 after the biggest four-day advance in more than six months, with prices stabilizing higher in Wednesday trading.
- An American Petroleum Institute survey pointed to a 5.23 million-barrel U.S. crude build, alongside gasoline up 8.23 million barrels and distillates up 4.34 million, with official EIA data due later Wednesday.
- Protests in Iran have heightened supply-risk perceptions for a producer of roughly 3.3 million barrels a day, though analysts noted unrest has not reached key oil regions.
- President Donald Trump urged Iranians to keep demonstrating and signaled he would act after assessing casualties, while Citi lifted its three-month Brent outlook to $70 on a higher risk premium.
- Venezuela has restarted exports, with two supertankers departing carrying about 1.8 million barrels each in what sources described as potential early cargoes of a 50-million-barrel arrangement; separate tanker attacks near the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal complicated Kazakhstan shipments.