Oil prices have officially given up all of this year’s gains for both WTI and Brent. The market has been steadily declining in the latter months of this year as worldwide growth is set to weaken, in part due to higher energy costs. Today’s losses were mostly driven by higher than expected increase in fuel inventories. Distillate stocks had a build of 6.2MM/bbls, far in excess of the 2.2MM/bbls forecasted. Gasoline stocks increased by 5.3MM/bbls versus and expected increase of 2.7MM/bbls. “There’s still tons of uncertainty in the markets today,” said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice-president at Rystad Energy, adding crude production in Russia may not drop as much as expected earlier. WTI traded down $2.24 or 3.02% to close at $72.01. Brent traded down $2.18 or -2.8% to close at $77.17.

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