Investing.com - Oil prices registered mixed signs in holiday-thinned trading on Wednesday as market participants kept an on eye on U.S. crude stockpiles.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude futures lost 12 cents, or about 0.2%, to $74.02 a barrel by 10:27AM ET (14:27GMT).
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., traded up 5 cents or 0.1%, to $77.82.
The decline in oil prices occurred despite data released late Tuesday that showed a decline in U.S. oil inventories.
After markets closed Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories fell by 4.5 million barrels last week. The API data also showed supply declines of roughly 3.1 million barrels in gasoline and 438,000 in distillates.
However, analysts commented that the draw was likely due to an outage at Syncrude Canada oil sands facility which generally produces 360,000 barrels per day. The facility is expected to remain offline through July, producing a drain on U.S. inventories.
Official U.S. supply data from the Energy Information Administration will be released Thursday morning, a day later than usual because of today's Independence Day holiday. Analysts are forecasting a decline of 3.5 million barrels.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures fell 0.1% $2.1209 a gallon by 10:29AM ET (14:29GMT), while heating oil gained 0.3% to $2.1709 a gallon.
Lastly, natural gas futures traded down 0.7% to $2.849 per million British thermal units.