Oil prices continued to climb on Thursday as support from four weeks of falling domestic crude supplies contributed to a gain, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
September West Texas Intermediate crude rose 29 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $49.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
September Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 52 cents, or 1%, to end trading at $51.49 a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
Both WTI and Brent crude were up about 7%.
The Energy Information Administration on Wednesday said domestic crude stockpiles fell by 7.2 million barrels last week.
Total domestic crude production edged down by 19,000 barrels to 9.410 million barrels a day while output in the lower 48 states climbed by 35,000 barrels to 9.005 million barrels a day—topping the 9 million level for the first time in over two years.
“The rebalancing act has been a difficult and lengthy process,” said Mark Watkins, regional investment manager at the Private Client Group at U.S. Bank in Utah. “The world has an ample supply of oil, so for the rebalancing act to truly take hold, demand needs to improve.”
Natural gas prices climbed as U.S. government data revealed a smaller-than-expected weekly rise of 17 billion cubic feet in supplies of the commodity.
August natural gas added 4.5 cents, or 1.5%, to settle at $2.969 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.