08:55 AM EDT, 03/19/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Oil edged lower early on Wednesday after a report showed a higher than expected rise in U.S. inventories last week.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil for April delivery was last seen down US$0.12 to US$66.78 per barrel, while May Brent crude was down US$0.07 to US$70.49.

In its weekly survey released on Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute reported U.S. oil inventories rose by 4.59-million barrels last week, well above the consensus estimate for a rise of 1.7-million barrels among analysts polled by Oilprice.com. The Energy Information Administration will release official storage data later on Wednesday.

The price drop follows on Tuesday's losses, which came despite rising geopolitical risk on renewed Middle East violence. Talks over a potential ceasefire in Ukraine between U.S. President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, made limited progress on a 30-day ceasefire and Russia launched overnight large-scale drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets.

Still, the talks are raising the possibility sanctions on Russia's oil industry may be lightened, boosting supply as OPEC+ readies to begin returning 2.2-million barrels per day of production cuts to market beginning next month. Non-OPEC supply is also on the rise.