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Investing.com -- Oil prices traded broadly unchanged Wednesday as traders digested the latest U.S. inventory data ahead of a meeting between Russian and U.S. leaders later this week.
At 08:55 ET (12:55 GMT), Brent oil futures for October gained 0.1% to $66.15 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 0.1% to $63.14 a barrel.
Both contracts settled lower on Tuesday, after data from the American Petroleum Institute showed that U.S. oil inventories grew by 1.5 million barrels in the week to August 8, more than the expected 0.8 million barrel draw.
The print usually heralds a similar reading from official inventory data, and spurred some concerns that U.S. fuel demand was cooling as the travel-heavy summer season came to a close.
Official U.S. Energy Information Administration inventory data is due later on Wednesday.
Trump-Putin meeting in focus
However, the crude market is trading in tight ranges ahead of a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, to discuss an end to the Ukraine war.
The meeting comes as Washington threatened even tighter sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, this time threatening to tariff major buyers of Russian oil– India and China. Trump had earlier outlined a 50% tariff on India.
The White House was seen tempering expectations for a quick end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Tuesday, potentially heralding drawn-out ceasefire negotiations and more sanctions on Russian oil in the coming weeks.
Additionally, Russia said on Wednesday that its stance on ending the war in Ukraine has not changed since President Vladimir Putin set out his conditions last year: the full withdrawal of Kyiv’s forces from key Ukrainian regions and the abandonment of its NATO ambitions.
Russia currently controls 19% of Ukraine including all of Crimea, all of Luhansk, more than 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
"The outcome could remove some of the sanction risk hanging over the market," said analysts at ING, in a note.
The EIA and the OPEC in separate monthly reports said they expect output to increase in the coming months, which also weighed on oil prices this week. The OPEC also slightly hiked its oil demand forecast for 2026.
Concerns over increasing production and sluggish demand have weighed heavily on oil prices this year, with threats of more U.S. sanctions against Russia doing little to stem crude’s decline.
IEA lifts supply growth forecast
Elsewhere, the International Energy Agency on Wednesday raised its forecast for oil supply growth this year but lowered its demand forecast due to lacklustre fuel demand across the major economies.
"The latest data show lacklustre demand across the major economies and, with consumer confidence still depressed, a sharp rebound appears remote," the Paris-based agency said in its monthly report. "Oil market balances look ever more bloated."
Concerns over increasing production and sluggish demand have weighed heavily on oil prices this year, with threats of more U.S. sanctions against Russia doing little to stem crude’s decline.
In its monthly report on Tuesday, OPEC+ raised its global oil demand forecast for next year and trimmed estimates of supply growth from the United States and other producers outside the wider group, pointing to a tighter market.
Ambar Warrick contributed to this article