WTI: API's surprise draw in headline for crude stock and soft greenback

With the dollar on the back foot and the recent surprise draw in headline for crude stock in the Private inventory data has given the black gold a boost and WTI rallied from a stagnant consolidation to fresh hourly highs. 

US dollar index erases gains after Fed’s minutes

The American Petroleum Institute late Wednesday reported a 884,000 barrel draw in U.S. crude supplies for the week ended Feb. 17 vrs a consensus gain of 3.4 million barrels - that is a big miss. There was also a decline of 893,000 barrels of gasoline and a 4.3 million barrel decline in distillates vrs the expected declines in gasoline stockpiles of 1.2 million barrels and in distillates of 400,000 barrels. We now await the Energy Information Administration report on Thursday. WTI has been on the backfoot for the best part of this week, supported at and around $52.80 and the 200 smoothed hourly sma at $52.99 currently. This is all in a correction of the upside from $50.86 recent lows after the break of $53.80. This lead to highs of $54.24.