Investing.com - The oil rally is showing no signs of slowing -- and there's enough gasoline in the bulls' tank to power it on.
A huge drawdown in U.S. gasoline stockpiles last week -- as large as the unexpected build in crude inventories -- spurred funds long on U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude and U.K. Brent oil to tack on more gains for April, following through with their best first-quarter performance in a decade.
New York-traded WTI settled up 64 cents, or 1%, at $64.62 per barrel after hitting $64.69 earlier.
London-traded Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was up $1.11, or 1.6%, at $71.72 by 2:48 PM ET (18:48 GMT). It gained another cent earlier in the session to reach a five-month high at $71.73.
Year to date, WTI is up 42% while Brent has gained 33%. The gains have pushed retail gasoline prices higher, too. AAA's daily survey of retail gas prices put the U.S. national average at $2.761 a gallon, up nearly 22% for the year.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said crude inventories grew by 7.03 million barrels in the week to April 5 compared with forecasts for a stockpile draw of 2.3 million barrels. It was a third-straight week of crude builds, with about 17 million additional barrels adding to inventories since the week ended March 22.
But the EIA report also showed that gasoline inventories plunged by 7.71 million barrels, compared with expectations for a draw of 2.01 million barrels.
Stocks of distillates, a proxy for diesel and heating oil dropped by just 0.12 million barrels, compared to forecasts for a decline of 1.3 million.
Analysts attributed the unexpected numbers to relatively-light refinery activity, with product processing at below 87% versus the 90% and above typical for this time of year.
"Despite an increase in activity, refinery runs remain over 900,000 bpd below year-ago levels, leading to a solid build to oil inventories, and particularly on the U.S. Gulf Coast," said Matthew Smith, analyst at New York-based crude cargoes tracker Clipperdata.
"Offsetting this bearish build has been an even larger draw to gasoline inventories - helped by the year-over-year deficit in refining activity, as well as a pop in implied demand over the last week," Smith said.
Meanwhile, OPEC said in its monthly report released Wednesday that key member Venezuela pumped 960,000 barrels per day in March, a drop of almost 500,000 bpd from February.
The figures could add to a debate within the OPEC+ group of producers on whether to maintain oil supply cuts beyond June.
OPEC, Russia and other non-member producers are reducing output by 1.2 million bpd from Jan. 1 for six months. The producers are due to meet on June 25-26 to decide whether to extend the pact.
Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian sovereign wealth fund chief who engineered the cooperation with OPEC, indicated this week that he wanted Moscow to pump more, although the Saudis, who virtually run OPEC, would like the curbs to remain. Russia's breakeven price for oil is around $42 per barrel while the Saudis need the market to be at around $84 to fund their national budget.
Vladimir Putin said he wasn't decided yet on how Moscow's cooperation with OPEC should go.