On Wednesday, oil prices rose following the report of the dropping US crude oil stockpiles at a higher rate than estimated, signaling an improvement in demand.
By 00.44 MGT, Brent crude oil futures jumped by .8% or 33 cents to USD41.60/barrel, after slumping by more than 1% on the previous session. Likewise, US WTI futures also edged up by 1.1% or 42 cents to USD39.69/barrel after falling by 1.1% on Tuesday.
The prices rose following a report from the American Petroleum Institute (API) report on late Tuesday that US crude oil inventories fell by 8.2 million barrels on the week ended June 26 to 537 million barrels.
Analysts only estimated a draw of 710,000 barrels.
The market is expecting stockpiles data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
However, the new outbreaks of coronavirus cases in many places around the world are still likely to cap the prices as several governments have reimposed lockdowns to limit the spread.
Separately, a poll held by Reuters forecast oil prices to average at about USD40/barrel in 2020 with recovery likely to picks up in the last quarter.
