By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Oil was up on Wednesday morning in Asia. The oil demand outlook was supported by investors’ attention to Poland and Bulgaria. Investors also hoped that China would release more economic stimulus.

By 12:20 ET (5:00 AM GMT), the price of crude oil rose 0.3% to $104.95 and climbed 0.14% to $101.84. Crude oil prices closed about 3 percent higher Tuesday due to volatile trading. This is because the market remains divided between supply and need concerns, as Russian oil and natural gas supplies have been disrupted.

Russia’s Gazprom has informed Poland and Bulgaria that it will stop gas supply from Wednesday. This is the latest response to Western sanctions following its February 24 invasion of Ukraine. NYMEX ultralow-sulfur Diesel futures rose more than 9% Tuesday to reach a record closing price of $4.47 per gallon.

Stephen Innes, of SPI Asset Management stated in a note that oil is being supported by the escalation geopolitical tensions.

Although cutting off gas flow is not a novel idea, Russia has chosen the right time to plug the gas flow when stagflation fears are running high.

The International Monetary Fund issued a warning Tuesday about Asia’s’stagflationary outlook’. This was due to the conflict in Ukraine, high commodity cost, and a slowdown economic in China, which all lead to considerable uncertainty.

The People’s Bank of China said on Tuesday it will step up prudent monetary policy support for the economy amid record numbers of COVID-19 cases in Beijing. OAG, the travel data company, said that despite COVID-19 locks in Shanghai and other cities, China’s domestic demand had rebounded, pushing global airline capacity to the highest in 2022.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s showed a build of 4.780 million barrels for the week ended Apr. 21. Investing.com forecasts a build in barrels of 2.167million, and a draw of 4.496 million barrels was reported during the week before.

Investors await the announcement, expected later in today.