Oil prices jumped on Tuesday with Saudi Arabia’s pledge to help rebalance the global crude market, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
December West Texas Intermediate crude rose 57 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $52.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange—the highest finish since April 17.
December Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 96 cents, or 1.7%, to end trading at $58.33 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange, marking the highest settlement since September 26.
At a conference Tuesday, oil minister Khalid al-Falih said Saudi Arabia is willing to “do whatever it takes” to rebalance global crude inventories and bring them back to their five-year average.
Al-Falih also suggested that more needs to be done, which is “signaling that it is very likely” that OPEC will agree to extend the current production agreement, which is set to expire in March of 2018.
Weekly data on domestic petroleum supplies will be released by the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday and the Energy Information Administration early Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts forecast a decline of 425,000 barrels in crude stockpiles.
Meanwhile, November natural gas fell 0.6% to $2.974 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.