SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Oil prices gained more than 1% on Wednesday, with U.S. crude rising for a seventh day, after industry data showed a bigger than expected drop in inventories and investors shrugged off worsening developments in the pandemic.
Brent crude was up 68 cents, or 1.2%, at $57.26 a barrel by 0622 GMT, having risen 1.7% in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 57 cents, or 1.07%, at $53.78 a barrel after gaining nearly 2% on Tuesday.
Both benchmarks are trading at the highest since February, before the coronavirus outbreak in China began spreading across the world and billions of people went into lockdown to prevent a pandemic that is now in a deadlier second wave.
Prices are shrugging off the latest developments in Europe and the United States where death tolls and new infections keep rising, with the focus on rollouts of vaccines, however patchy.
Even as China is grappling with its biggest coronavirus spike in months, comments from President Xi Jinping providing an upbeat assessment of the world’s second-biggest economy and biggest oil importer supported prices.
“Crude oil prices also continued to rally … on economic optimism in China after President’s Xi comments and an inventory report from API showed that crude oil inventories fell more than expected,” said Avtar Sandu, senior manager commodities at Phillip Futures.
Oil stocks in the U.S. dropped by 5.8 million barrels last week to around 484.5 million barrels, data from the American Petroleum Institute showed late on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
