By Meeyoung Cho
SEOUL (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped on Thursday after U.S. government data showed that gasoline stocks and distillate inventories rose last week, although falls were checked by continuing Middle East geopolitical tensions.
U.S. July crude
Brent August crude
Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed crude inventories
Gasoline stocks
Tropical Depression Bill drenched large parts of Texas on Wednesday, but oilfields in the Gulf of Mexico and near the coast were unaffected by the storm. Refineries also operated normally.
After the Federal Reserve signalled it may wait until late this year to raise interest rates, the U.S. dollar slid while Wall Street stocks rose in volatile trading. [MKTS/GLOB]
In Greece, its leftist government faced a barrage of warnings that it risked being forced out of the euro zone and left without support if it failed to strike a swift aid-for-reforms deal with its creditors.
"The game of chicken continues between Greece and its creditors ... It appears both sides are preparing for a failure of talks – though of course this in itself is a useful negotiating tactic ahead of the Eurogroup finance ministers meeting on Thursday," ANZ said in a note on Thursday.
In the Middle East, Islamic State killed five policemen in a town near Iraq's biggest refinery, in an attack that may help ease pressure on some of its fighters trapped in the strategically important facility, a security official said.
Car bombs killed or injured at least 50 people near mosques and the headquarters of Yemen's dominant Houthi group in Sanaa on Wednesday, in coordinated attacks claimed by Islamic State.