By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com — Oil bulls’ misfortunes seem to be limited so long as Russia continues having misfortunes in getting its crude out.

Crude prices rebounded from Tuesday’s lows after the energy ministry in Moscow warned that Russian and Kazakhstan oil exports via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, or CPC, may fall by up to 1 million barrels daily due to storm-damaged berths. Pavel Sorokin, Russia’s deputy energy minister, said repair works could take up to two months.

CPC, a joint-venture that transports Caspian oil between the Tengiz and Novorossiysk-2 Marine Terminals on Russia’s Black Sea coastline is the CPC. This is also the main export route of oil from Karachaganak and Kashaganak fields. Around 1.2 Million barrels of oil are transported daily by the pipeline, representing 1.2% global oil demand.

The drop in CPC flow has further strained the nerves and nervous systems of traders in oil, as sanctions against Russia and other restrictions on Russia have already deprived global oil markets an estimated 3,000,000 barrels per hour in oil supply. 

Crude prices, which had been down as much as  2% earlier on Tuesday due to Europe’s indecision in implementing a U.S.-style ban on Russian crude, recovered from session lows on the CPC news.

“The CPC had been in a very gray area since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and this story only adds to the suspected deficit in global oil supplies stemming from Russia’s misfortunes,” said John Kilduff, founding partner at New York energy hedge fund Again Capital.

U.S. crude’s , or WTI, benchmark settled down 36 cents, or 0.3%, at $111.76 a barrel. WTI gained approximately 17% in the three preceding sessions. 

The London-traded benchmark oil price was at $115.70, up 0.1% from the session low. Like WTI, Brent had gained 17% ​​between the settlement of Wednesday and Monday.

Brent and WTI both lost up to 2% on Tuesday, as WTI and Brent fell as high as 2%. This was because the European Union’s Foreign Ministers differed over whether or how sanctions should be imposed on Russia’s Energy Sector.

EU allies and Russia have taken a number of severe steps against Moscow. These include freezing the assets of its central bank. However, the EU and its allies have already taken stern measures against Russia, including freezing its central bank assets. This is divisive for 27 nations, who depend on Russia for 25 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its gas.

“The oil market remains very tight and completely fixated over every development with the war in Ukraine,” said Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA.

Apart from the Russia-Ukraine story, traders looked out Tuesday for U.S. weekly crude oil inventory data after settlement by the American Petroleum Institute or API.

At approximately 4:30PM ET (20:30 GMT), the API will publish a snapshot showing U.S. crude oil, gasoline, and distillate closing balances for the week ending March 18. This data will be used to prepare for official U.S Energy Information Administration inventory data due Wednesday.

Analysts tracked by Investing.com anticipate that the EIA will report a build in 114,000 barrels for the week ending March 18. This is on top of its 4.35 million build reported for the week up to March 11.

On the front, the consensus is for a draw of 1.99 million barrels over the 3.62  million barrels consumed in the previous week.

With , the expectation is for a drop of 1.39 million barrels versus the prior week’s build of 332,000.