Oil market clearly are manipulated again today With a decline of more than 4% and trading below $70, oil is clearly being manipulated lower despite OilPrice saying the following today: a rebound in crude oil demand in China pushed crude oil throughputs at refineries higher by 3.3% over the first two months of the year. At an average of 14.36 million barrels per day (bpd), per Reuters, Chinese refinery throughputs in January to February compared with 13.98 million bpd for the first two months of 2022 and 14.1 million bpd for December 2022.
Oil prices were also supported early on Wednesday by data from the American Petroleum Institute (API), which showed a crude inventory build, but larger-than-expected draws in gasoline and distillate inventories.
“Overall the numbers are supportive. The crude build came in slightly lower than expected, whilst the draws in refined products were larger than the market was expecting,” ING strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said early on Wednesday.