The American Petroleum Institute (API) handed oil markets a sliver of hope this afternoon by reporting a sizeable draw of 5.764 million barrels in United States crude oil inventories, compared to analyst’s expectations that this week would see a more modest 2.83-million-barrel draw for the week ending June 30. And the market is in desperate need of that optimism, after prices fell sharply earlier today on reports that Russia is taking a rather tough stance against deeper OPEC/NOPEC production cuts. At 4:06pm EST, WTI was trading down 4.42 percent at $44.99 per barrels, while the price of Brent crude had slid 3.89 percent to $47.68 per barrel. Gasoline was also trading down, by 2.51 percent at $1.496. While today’s drop in prices were significant, all three benchmarks were still trading higher than last Tuesday, and this week’s API report of falling inventories almost across the board, which exceeded analyst […]