ING Bank: Uncertainty surrounds crude oil markets.

Oil prices continued to decline yesterday amid uncertainty regarding tariff outlooks, a dynamic that overshadows the risks of sanctions, especially after additional sanctions were imposed on the Iranian oil industry, according to commodity analysts at ING, Warren Patterson and Eva Manthy. The analysts added that the Trump administration is currently monitoring the situation in Venezuela, especially after Chevron's license to operate in the South American country expired. In this regard, the United States had previously allowed Chevron to operate there, and despite the sanctions, crude oil was being exported to the U.S., with average U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude oil reaching about 270,000 barrels per day this year so far. Regarding inventories, the weekly inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) was somewhat neutral, as crude oil inventories fell by 2.33 million barrels last week, marking the first decline in inventories since mid-January and the largest drop since December. Strong activity in refineries is the reason for the decline in U.S. oil inventories, with refinery utilization rates increasing by 1.6 percentage points compared to the previous week. However, gasoline inventories rose slightly by 369,000 barrels, and a stronger increase was recorded in distillate fuel inventories, which grew by 3.91 million barrels.