Morning Crude Oil Market Report

September crude oil prices took on a slightly lower track during the overnight and early morning hours, pressured by a weaker outside market tone. While economic data overnight in China showed improvement in their housing market, concerns among officials over potential job losses presents a negative to the global oil demand outlook. Some traders indicated that the crude oil market was concerned over Fed chairman Bernanke's comments yesterday, his economic view, and lack of clarity on offering another round of quantitative easing. Expectations for this morning's EIA inventory data are for draw in the range of 1.0 to 1.25 million barrels, which compares to the five-year average draw for this week of the year of 1.8 million barrels. As of last week's report, crude oil inventories were more than 6.4% above year ago levels and 11% above their five-year average.