Investing.com - Oil prices reversed earlier losses to trade higher on Thursday, as investors stayed bullish after weekly U.S. supply data painted an upbeat picture on domestic demand for crude and refined products.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude September contract was at $49.81 a barrel by 8:45AM ET (1245GMT), up 21 cents, or around 0.4%. It fell to as low as $49.13 in overnight trade.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for October delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London tacked on 28 cents to $52.64 a barrel, recovering from a session low of $51.88.
Oil prices finished higher on Wednesday, as investors viewed weekly U.S. inventory data on crude and refined products as bullish.
The Energy Information Administration reported a 1.5 million barrel drop in U.S. crude supplies last week, below analysts’ expectations.
However, gasoline inventories fell by a more-than-expected 2.5 million barrels while demand hit a record above 9.8 million barrels a day, the EIA said.
Meanwhile, oil traders looked ahead to a technical meeting of some OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Abu Dhabi next week to assess how the group can increase compliance with production cuts that began at the start of this year.
So far, the output deal has had little impact on global inventory levels due to rising supply from producers not participating in the accord, such as Libya and Nigeria, as well as a relentless increase in U.S. shale output.
Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for September was down less than half a cent to $1.641 a gallon, while September heating oil was little changed at $1.657 a gallon.
Natural gas futures for September delivery ticked up 2.6 cents, or 0.9%, to $2.837 per million British thermal units, as traders looked ahead to weekly storage data due later in the global day.