The brent crude oil price has recovered somewhat over the course of European trade, the May contract is 0.25 pct up at 122.69.
The WTI crude oil price is 0.4 pct up at 101.92.
Oil prices came under pressure yesterday on a headline crude oil build of 9 mb in the weekly EIA data.
This sees the continuation of the recent 'slacker crude, tighter products' theme suggests Suki Cooper at Barclays.
US crude oil imports reached 9.77 mb/d in the latest week, a full 1 mb/d higher at the end of March than the level they started the month at. As a result, crude inventories surged for a second week, and now are above last year's levels for the first time this year.
KBC Markets say:
"On Wednesday, Brent price saw the largest daily decrease since the beginning of March after the EIA said that U.S. crude inventories soared in the second consecutive week.
"This time, the combination of record-high domestic oil output and rising imports sent the US commercial inventories to the highest level since June 2011.
"As regards the imports, preliminary estimates showed the second largest inflow of crude from Canada (2.57 million barrels per day). The report also confirmed a lower than estimated consumption of petroleum products – total product supplied has been basically flat so far this year. As a result, the price of the front month contract on Brent closed below 123 USD per barrel (USD/bbl) level."
Elsewhere on the commodities market, base metals posted significant losses on Wednesday.
Three month copper (LME) even shrunk by more than 3 percent and closed below 8400 USD per ton (USD/t) while aluminum dipped below 2100 USD/t.
"We maintain our view that copper price might further decrease in months ahead. On the contrary, the room for further losses in case of aluminum seems to be limited due to possible cuts in production, especially outside of China," say KBC Markets.
Gold price fell by more than 1.5 percent in the second straight session on Wednesday.
The price of the yellow metal hit the lowest level in three months and closed at 1620 USD per troy ounce level.
According to Reuters, Asia’s buyers showed a moderate buying interest after recent price falls.
