Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, talks about how oil performs traditionally in May.

He says that, seasonally, oil corrects and moves lower in early May. This year, US oil production has declined for 14 weeks while Opec production continues to rise. Hansen says this is prolonging the rebalancing process.

With the US inventory report due later on Wednesday, Hansen says that traditionally, inventories decline as refinery demand picks up ahead of the US motoring season.

Expectations are of a US inventory increase by 600,000 barrels/day after the American Petroleum Institute this week reported a crude oil increase of 1.3 million barrels.