By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com — Oil prices tumbled more than 3% Tuesday, their most in a day since the year began, as Moscow wound down Russian troops that had ringed Ukraine’s borders for more than two months, removing a huge geopolitical premium from energy markets. 

The crude was very close to the $90/barrel mark, but it ended up well over that. Traders now await weekly inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute, or API, that would indicate what the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, would report as last week’s closing balances of crude, gasoline and distillates.

New York’s benchmark crude oil price, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, was down 3.6% at $92.07 per bar. Intraday’s low was $90.66. 

WTI reached a record high of $95.82 Monday on geopolitical threats associated with Russia. The United States and Europe had warned Moscow that Russia’s oil and other exports could be severely restricted in the event of an attack against Ukraine.

Notwithstanding Tuesday’s drop, WTI remained up 22% on the year.

The London-traded was the international benchmark for oil and fell 3.5% to $93.06 per barrel at 2:35PM ET (19:35 GMT). Session low: 92.08. Brent achieved a high seven year old of $96.76 Monday. It is currently up about 20% year to date.

At the time of writing, it wasn’t not clear how extensive the Russian retreat from Ukraine’s borders was, although there was an estimated buildup of 130,000 soldiers earlier.  

U.S. President Joe Biden and Boris Johnson agreed that Monday’s retreat offered a critical window for diplomacy. The White House would announce details of the disengagement later Tuesday.

The record shows that Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014 and was subject to international protests and economic sanctions. 

Experts had been worried about Ukraine’s fate this time. However, Moscow maintained that they had never planned to invade the country. The Kremlin also said it wants to end NATO’s expansion to Eastern Europe and had repeatedly called on the non-aligned treaty to withdraw from the region.

At 4:30 PM ET (22:30 GMT), the API will provide data about crude, gasoline, distillate and other stockpiles from the week that ended February 11. Market participants typically use API data for information on what the EIA may report when it releases data about its crude, gasoline and distillate stockpiles for the week ended February 11.

For the week to Feb. 11, analysts tracked by Investing.com expect the EIA to report that  fell by 1.57 million barrels, adding to the previous week’s decline of 4.76 million barrels.

{ likely rose by 550,000 barrels last week, after the previous week’s drop of 1.64 million. 

Gasoline, known as petrol outside of the United States, is America’s premier fuel product. The fuel’s inventories have risen dramatically in the last month due to refiners appearing to maximize fuel processing before scheduled plant maintenance in March. Americans tend to drive less when temperatures rise in January due to the increased winter temperature.

Inventories of , or , are expected to have fallen by 1.46 million barrels last week, adding to the previous week’s slide of 929,000 barrels. Diesel for cars, trucks, trains, and ships is made from distillates, as well as jet fuel.