Oil prices have increased after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a larger-than-expected decrease in US crude oil and gasoline inventories.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 51 cents to $62.89 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 increased 54 cents to $57.94 per barrel, Reuters reported.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Data released by API highlighted a fall in US crude inventories by 7.2 million barrels in the week ended 6 September to 421.9 million, which is against analysts’ expectations of a decrease of 2.7 million barrels, according to a Reuters poll.
OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley was quoted by Reuters as saying: “Oil should remain supported in Asian trading, mostly supported by the overnight API crude inventory data.”
Halley added that he was anticipating a drop of 4.8 million barrels when official numbers are released by the EIA later on Wednesday.
Crude oil stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub dropped by 1.4 million barrels, while refinery crude runs increased by 208,000boe/d, API noted. Gasoline stocks were down by 4.5 million barrels, when compared to analysts’ expectations of an 847,000-barrel decline.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataPrices have increased sharply before US president Donald Trump fired national security adviser John Bolton saying that he disagreed ‘strongly’ with him.
They were further boosted after Saudi Arabia new energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that the agreement with other producers to cut production by a combined 1.2Mboe/d would be maintained.
Following re-imposed sanctions by the US, Iran’s oil exports dropped by more than 80%.
