Oil prices take sharp fall

Surprisingly good data released by the EIA precipitated a sharp fall in Brent crude prices yesterday.

Crude stocks rose by 6.9mio bbls (versus expected 100k) and gasoline stocks rose by 1.8mio bbls (versus expected 1mio). The fall saw Brent crude dip to $70.50 before recovering to the $70.80 level where we begin todays session. The key concern over the data was refinery capacity which fell to 87.6%, some 9% below typical levels for this time of year: this inevitably muted the bearish run.