Oil futures finish higher on Wednesday after U.S. government data revealed an unanticipated drop in crude oil inventories, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, November WTI crude rose $1.14, or 2.3%, to settle at $49.83 a barrel.
On the London ICE Futures Exchange, November Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 99 cents, or 2%, to end trading at $51.86 a barrel—the highest finish since early June.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported early Wednesday that domestic crude supplies fell by 3 million barrels for the week ending September 30. A 2-million-barrel climb was expected by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a drop of 7.6 million barrels.
Domestic crude oil production fell by 38,000 barrels a day for the lower 48 states, according to the EIA report.
Crude oil inventories have declined for five weeks in a row and each of those weekly declines came as a surprise to market analysts. Oil strategist have been consistently forecasting increases for each of those weeks.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, November natural gas settled with a gain of 7.7 cents, or 2.6%, at $3.041 per million British thermal units ahead of the market’s own weekly supply update from the EIA Thursday.