Investing.com - Oil prices gained on Thursday in Asia after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that U.S. crude inventories fell last week.
U.S. Crude Oil WTI Futures rose 0.7% to $57.51 by 1:08 AM ET (05:08 GMT). International Brent Oil Futures also gained 0.6% to $62.77.
The API reported that crude inventories fell by about 500,000 for the week ended Nov. 8.
Crude oil prices popped 1.11% following the report after settling 0.6% higher.
Analysts are expecting that the Energy Information Administration’s government data will show a rise of 1.65 million barrels in crude stocks for the week ended Nov. 8.
In other news, also supporting oil prices today were comments by Mohammad Barkindo, Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, who said global economic fundamentals remained strong, and he said he was still confident the U.S. and China would reach a trade deal.
“It will almost remove that dark cloud that had engulfed the global economy,” Barkindo said, adding it was too early to discuss the output policy of OPEC’s December meeting. Signals sent out by the cartel earlier that it probably won’t ask for additional output cuts next month had been one of the factors weighing on oil.
He added that there will likely be downward revisions of supply going into 2020 especially from the U.S. shale.
Looking ahead, OPEC and its allies, including Russia, will meet on Dec. 5-6 to discuss output policy and whether to extend production curbs of 1.2 million bpd that have been in place since January.