Oil futures climbed on Wednesday to finish at levels last seen in November, as traders turned their attention to U.S. crude production, which fell for a seventh straight week.
Prices had pared gains in the immediate wake of U.S. government data released early Wednesday showing that crude supplies rose for a third week in a row, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
June West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.29, or 2.9%, to settle at $45.33 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest finish since Nov. 4.
June Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures Exchange climbed by $1.44, or 3.2%, to $47.18 a barrel, the highest close for the global benchmark since Nov. 10.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday a 2 million-barrel climb in crude oil supplies for the week ended April 22. The American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday had reported a 1.1 million-barrel fall.
Analysts polled by Platts had expected an 800,000-barrel increase, while analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected crude stocks to have risen by 1.7 million barrels on average.
The EIA data also revealed that total domestic oil production edged down by 15,000 barrels to 8.938 million barrels a day. They’re down from 9.373 million a year ago and they’ve now posted declines in each of the last seven weeks.
Even so, the market is “well supplied and inventories keep building with Saudi Arabia still pumping at record levels and saying they may increase production in the months to come,” said Tariq Zahir, managing member at Tyche Capital Advisors.
News reports earlier this week said that the Saudis plan to complete expansion of the Shaybah oil field by the end of May, but the country’s economic reform plan aims at reducing the country’s dependence on oil revenues.
May natural gas ended at $1.995 per million British thermal units, down 3.7 cents, or 1.8%, on the contract’s expiration day.