Oil goes against the tide

The last few weeks the positioning and local forces prevail over the fundamental statistics. Strong growth in US oil inventories for the week (13.8 million) caused a rise in prices of raw materials. News feeds give this to the fact that the earlier API reported an increase to 14.2 million. However, this is far-fetched explanation. After news from API oil lost 60 cents, and after the EIA data it increased by 120 cents. More difficult is to fit into this explanation the fact that the production has also increased to 8.98 million barrels/day - the maximum since April 2016. Oil is clearly accumulated in stocks, which are already at 8% above year-ago levels and 0.7% lower then historical records. It's only the beginning. Until April crude oil inventories will rise, if left in force of the traditional seasonality.