At the close, Brent oil futures in London increased by 2.91 USD / barrel, or 4.6%, to 66.58 USD / barrel. WTI oil price delivered in New York market increased 2.97 USD / barrel, equivalent to 4.94% increase to 63.15 USD / barrel.
Weekly reports from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy show that the country’s crude inventories fell 5.9 million barrels last week, far exceeding the forecast for a 2.9 million barrel drawdown that analysts made earlier. Inventories in the East Coast region even dropped to record lows.
The amount of gasoline delivered to the US market last week - an indicator of gasoline consumption - increased to 8.9 million barrels / day, the highest level since August last year.
Gasoline inventories rose 309,000 barrels, less than the forecast for an increase of 786,000 barrels. Distillate inventories fell 2.1 million barrels, compared with a forecast for a 971,000-barrel increase.
"The entire contents of the report from the EIA are effective to support oil prices," Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group told Reuters. "It looks like strong demand numbers are returning, and this should help oil prices go up."
WTI oil prices futures in New York from the beginning of the year up to now. Unit: USD / barrel - Source: Trading View.
At the beginning of the session, oil prices were supported by another report from the IEA - the agency headquartered in Paris, France. The report stated that global oil demand and supply will return to equilibrium in the second half of this year. The report also said that oil-producing countries may have to pump an additional 2 million barrels of oil a day to meet demand.
"This IEA report is one of the best the agency has released lately, in terms of optimism about demand for oil," said John Kilduff, fund manager at Again Capital. review.
In a similar move, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on April 13 raised its forecast for growth in global oil demand in 2021 by 70,000 barrels / day compared with the report last month. This time, OPEC believes that world oil consumption will increase by 5.95 million barrels a day this year compared to last year.
The strong growth signs of China and the US economy recently are also supporting the "black gold" price. However, a number of hurdles to the Covid-19 vaccination campaign globally, as well as a surge in new Covid infections in India and Brazil are hindering the rise in oil prices.
