Oil prices slipped on Thursday, with Brent futures easing 0.3% to $67.86 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate down 0.5% to $63.86. The pull-back erased part of the previous session’s gain, even after U.S. government data showed crude inventories fell by 2.4 million barrels in the week to Aug. 22, a larger draw than analysts had expected. Traders cited the looming end of the U.S. summer driving season after the Labor Day holiday and the restart of Russia’s Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia as fresh headwinds for demand and supply, respectively. The seasonal slowdown in gasoline consumption is expected to moderate U.S. refinery runs, while renewed Druzhba flows add barrels to the European market. Policy tensions also weighed on sentiment. President Donald Trump this week doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50% in an effort to curb New Delhi’s purchases of discounted Russian crude. Despite the move, trading sources said Indian refiners intend to raise Russian oil imports by 10-20% in September, or roughly 150,000-300,000 barrels a day, taking advantage of wider discounts of $2–$3 a barrel to dated Brent. Russia’s exporters have surplus crude after drone strikes and maintenance outages idled an estimated 17% of the country’s refining capacity, prompting them to deepen price cuts. Analysts noted that India’s continued buying may limit the impact of Washington’s tariffs on global supply balances, keeping a cap on prices even as seasonal demand ebbs.