Business

Oil prices rise due to inventory draw

13 Jan 2021

Picture used for illustrative purpose. File

Gulf Today Report

Oil prices advanced above 1% on Wednesday following the rise in US crude due to overnight drop in inventories.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 67 cents, or 1.3%, at $53.88 a barrel while Brent crude was up 79 cents, or 1.4%, at $57.37.

This the highest both benchmarks have traded at since February, before the coronavirus outbreak.

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Coronavirus restrictions developments in Europe and surge in cases and deaths in the United States are major determiners in prices.

Avtar Sandu, senior manager commodities at Philip Futures said, "crude oil prices also continued to rally ... on economic optimism in China after President's Xi comments and an inventory report from API showed that crude oil inventories fell more than expected."

Oil stocks in the US dropped by 5.8 million barrels last week to around 484.5 million barrels, data from the American Petroleum Institute showed late on Tuesday.