Investing.com - Crude oil prices eased in Asia on Friday in Asia as investores looked ahead to U.S. rig count figures.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, WTI crude for December delivery fell 0.60% to $45.79 a barrel.
Investors turn to Friday's weekly rig count from oil services firm Baker Hughes (N:BHI) for further indications on the supply-demand imbalance in U.S. energy markets. Last week, Baker Hughes said its U.S. oil rig count for the week ending on Oct. 16 fell by 1 to 594. It marked the eighth straight week of weekly declines. The count of oil and gas rigs combined remained unchanged last week at 787, its lowest level since April, 2002.
Overnight, U.S. crude futures inched up on Thursday paring some of their gains from earlier in the session, as investors continued to digest a bullish inventory report from the previous day.
On the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Brent crude for December delivery wavered between $48.17 and $49.38 a barrel, before closing at $48.80, down 0.25 or 0.51% on the day. North Sea brent futures have now closed lower on five of the last six trading days. Meanwhile, the spread between the international and U.S. benchmarks of crude stood at $2.77, below Wednesday's level of $3.17 at the close of trading.
One session earlier, crude futures surged more than 6% after a lower than expected supply build last week. On Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased by 3.37 million barrels for the week ending on Oct. 23, slightly below expectations of a 3.41 million barrel gain.
It also came one day after the American Petroleum Institute reported an increase of 4.1 million barrels last week. At 480.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories remain near levels not seen for this time of year in at least 80 years. U.S. crude production inched up 16,000 barrels to 9.112 million bpd. Crude output remains sharply below its level from this spring when it surged above 9.6 million bpd to reach its highest level in more than 40 years.