Investing.com - Crude prices gained in Asia on Wedneday on bullish weekly industry data on U.S. stockpiles.
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, said late Tuesday that its own data for the same week showed a 1.7 million-barrel draw in crude stocks. The group also said that gasoline supplies rose by 100,000 barrels and stocks of distillates fell by 500,000 barrels.
API expectations were for a drop of 876,000 barrels in crude stocks, while U,S, Department of Energy figures are expected to show a decline of 2.15 million barrels and are due at 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate crude oil for delivery in August traded at $103.46 a barrel, up 0.06%, aftr hitting an overnight session low of $103.02 a barrel and a high of $104.13 a barrel.
Brent oil crude on the ICE future exchange fell $1.30, or 1.2%, to settle at $108.94 a barrel on Tuesday.
Overnight, crude futures carried losses into Tuesday on expectations for Libyan oil exports to resume flowing out of the country after the government and rebels ended a standoff that had closed several facilities and ports.
The deal should add 500,000 barrels per day of crude back into the global energy market, and the news sent futures falling on expectations for global supply to rise.
Meanwhile, expectations for the Iraqi insurgency to remain to the north of the country's oilfields also allowed prices to dip, though last week's upbeat U.S. jobs report cushioned losses.
Investors also avoided the commodity ahead of the release of the Federal Reserve's minutes from its June policy meeting on Wednesday.