Oil trades comatose, awaits weekly US storage data

Oil prices at both the sides of the Atlantic trade comatose in Asia as traders await weekly US government inventory report release, which could show a drawdown in inventories.

At the time of writing, WTI crude and Brent crude traded largely unchanged on the day around $45.50/barrel and $46.70/barrel respectively.

Prices failed to strengthen in Asia even though American Petroleum Institute (API) data released overnight US stockpiles fell 2.3 million barrels last week, which was higher than estimate of a 2.1 million barrel drop. Furthermore, API also reported a surprise drop of 484,000 barrels in distillate inventories.   

The data has increased expectations of a bullish weekly government inventory report.