WTI: Surprise draw in API crude oil inventory supports buyers near $57.00

• WTI maintains its stand near $57.00 on early Wednesday.
• Surprise draw in private inventory report helps the US crude benchmark to remain up.
• $58.00 continues to be a strong resistance with $54.30 acting as important support.

WTI is taking the bids around $57.00 during early Asian hours on Wednesday. The energy benchmark manages to remain firm as private inventory data shows a surprise draw in weekly stock. Reports of supply cut extension and EIA forecasts entertained traders during Tuesday.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) released details of stockpiles survey for the week ended on March 04. As per the results, crude oil inventories surprisingly registered a draw of -2.58 million barrels compared to a build of 7.29M during last week. Reductions were also reported in gasoline stocks by -5.85M but distillate inventories grew +195K.

As the API reports are considered to be an early signal for the official weekly oil stock change report from Energy Information Administration (EIA), traders responded to the decline in inventories with sustained buying.  

Earlier during Tuesday, energy traders maintained their buying bets as the latest news from OPEC members signaled readiness to extend supply-cuts. Though, bulls were softly challenged later as EIA cut its forecasts for global oil demand by 20,000 barrels per day to 1.46 million bpd and 40,000 barrels per day to 1.45 million bpd for the years 2020 and 2019 respectively.

Investors may now await official EIA stockpile report, up for release at 14:30 GMT during today. The report last showed an increase in oil levels by 7.069M and bears the market consensus of 2.861M for the present release.

WTI Technical Analysis

In spite of flashing a fresh high of the week, WTI sweet light crude oil continued to remain beneath $58.00 round-figure, a break of which could help the energy price to rise toward $58.80 and $59.10.

Alternatively, 100-day simple moving average (SMA) level of $54.30 can offer strong support ahead of providing small stops around $55.60.