U.S. crude stockpiles fell for the sixth-straight week, according to an estimate released Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute.
West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude prices, was up 0.7% to $73.47 a barrel on the news, after settling up 0.5% to $73.31 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories fell by 8.2 million barrels for the week ended June 24. That compared with a draw of 7.2 million barrels reported by the API for the previous week.
The API also showed that gasoline inventories rose by about 1.3 million last week, compared with a 1.0 million build in the prior week, and distillate stocks rose by about 400,000 barrels.
The official government inventory report due Wednesday is expected to show weekly U.S. crude supplies declined by about 4.7 million barrels last week.
Oil investors await Thursday’s meeting of major oil producers, who are expected to ease crude production curbs.
“[W]e believe they will answer the call to put more barrels on the market, potentially increasing supply by between 500 kb/d and 1 mb/d starting in August,” RBC said in a note. “The new monthly meeting structure provides the producer group much needed flexibility and we think they will signal their willingness to adjust output as needed on a go forward basis.”
Source: Reuters