The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil finally seems to be rising. At least part of this may be occurring because inventories at Cushing finally seem to be drawing rather than increasing:

WTI has recently been trading at a discount to Brent. The shift in the inventory situation may help get this relationship back to a more normal relationship, with WTI priced above Brent.

One might also ask whether US demand is playing a role in higher prices. Below the fold I show a few graphs that seem to indicate that US demand is really not up much yet.