Oil prices were flat in early Asian trade on Thursday as investors matched anxiety over tighter supplies against lower demand predictions.
Brent crude futures for December settlement declined 28 cents, or 0.3%, to $92.13 a barrel by 0010 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery (WTI) , which expires on Thursday, climbed 34 cents, or 0.4%, to $85.89 per barrel.
In remarks Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden said he planned to sell 15 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and repurchase oil if prices fall enough. The reserve release would be the last sale of the planned sale of 180 million barrels of oil announced shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
However, a prospective European Union ban on Russian crude and oil products and the output cut from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers, including Russia, known as OPEC+, of 2 million barrels per day boosted prices.
Global demand for gasoline remains unpredictable. U.S. economic activity rose somewhat in recent weeks, but it was flat in some places and fell in a number of others, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in a report that showed firms growing more pessimistic about the outlook.
U.S. oil stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week-down 1.7 million barrels, weekly official data revealed, against estimates for an increase of 1.4 million barrels. SPR reserves declined 3.6 million barrels to slightly over 405 million, the lowest since May 1984.
