Oil futures barely
managed to put an end to a five session losing streak on Wednesday, as
traders weighed support from a fall in weekly U.S. crude production
against pressure from a rise in stockpiles.
Crude supplies marked a seventh weekly climb, but the increase came in below some market expectations.
West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery CLK6, +0.05% tacked
on 4 cents, or 0.1%, to settle at $38.32 a barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange after settling at a two-week low on Tuesday. Prices
lost nearly 8% over the previous five trading sessions. May Brent crude
LCOK6, +0.33% rose 12 cents, or 0.3%, to $39.26 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange.
Early Wednesday, the
U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a 2.3 million-barrel
rise in crude-oil supplies to 534.8 million barrels for the week ended
March 25. Stockpiles marked a seventh straight weekly climb.
With the supply rise
coming in below some expectations, WTI prices rallied to as high as
$39.79 a barrel immediately after the report, before paring gains.
Oil prices have
rebounded in recent weeks since their lows below $30 a barrel earlier
this year on the back of declines in U.S. output and expectations that
major producers will agree to supply limits at an April 17 meeting in
Qatar. But global oil stockpiles remain near record highs, and U.S.
crude inventories are at their highest levels in more than 80 years.
Source: MarketWatch
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