Oil rallies on US inventory draw and rise in Japanese imports

Oil prices at both the sides of the Atlantic rallied in Asia after a private data in US showed a drop in inventories, while Japan reported higher oil imports.

At the time of writing, WTI oil was up 1.84% or 81 cents at $44.87/barrel. Brent oil was up 1.31% or 0.60% at $46.48/barrel.

API reported a draw in inventories

American Petroleum Institute (API) released overnight showed a 7.5 million barrel draw to 507.2 million barrels in US crude inventories, the third weekly inventory draw. Markets were expecting an increase of 3.4 million barrels.

Japan crude imports rise

Japan reported a surprise trade deficit, which is bad news for Japanese economy. However, the details showed oil imports rose 0.5 percent in August from the same month a year earlier. The bullish news added to the bid tone around oil prices.

The focus now is on the action in the USD index following the BOJ rate decision. Later in the day, US government inventory data and FOMC rate decision could influence prices.