Investing.com - Oil prices rallied back-to-back on Tuesday on signs the world’s biggest producers were heeding to their agreement not to overproduce, as the trade awaited industry data that could still show U.S. crude stockpiles built last week.
The American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to report at 4:30 PM ET (21:30 GMT) a sampling of inventory data that could suggest builds for crude and perhaps even fuel products last week.
The API data precedes Wednesday’s official inventory from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, due at 10:30 AM ET (15:30 GMT).
The EIA is likely to find that U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 446,000 barrels last week after the previous week’s drop of almost 10 million barrels.
The EIA is also expected to report a gasoline stockpile rise of 1.13 million to add to the previous week’s 2.47 million.
For distillates inventories, the agency is likely to report a decline of 429,000 barrels after the previous week’s drop of 815,000.
In Tuesday’s trade, New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, the key indicator for U.S. crude, settled up $1.21, or 2.2%, at $54.76 per barrel. It was WTI’s second straight day for a 2% rally.
London-traded Brent, the global benchmark for crude, also settled up 2.2%, or $1.11, at $57.46.
The rally came after a Reuters survey found that OPEC crude output rose for a seventh month in January but the increase was smaller than expected, indicating producers were keeping to their agreement not to overproduce.