U.S. WTI Oil Prices Rise Above $64 For First Time in Three Years

Investing.com – Crude prices continued higher on Thursday, with the U.S. benchmark hitting its strongest level since December 2014 amid optimism over shrinking U.S. stockpiles.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) hit a session high of $64.08 barrel, a level not seen since Dec. 8, 2014. It was last at $63.94 by 7:50AM ET (1250GMT), up 37 cents, or about 0.6%.

Meanwhile, futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., were at $69.40 a barrel, up 19 cents from their last close, after touching its best level since May 2015 at $69.59.

Oil continued to draw support from a report showing U.S. crude stockpiles declined for an eighth straight week.

U.S. crude oil inventories fell by last week to 419.5 million barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s slightly below the five-year average of just over 420 million barrels.

The report also showed that U.S. crude oil production fell by 290,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 9.49 million bpd.

Crude futures have rallied around 13% since early December, benefiting from production cut efforts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia. The producers agreed in December to extend current oil output cuts until the end of 2018.

The deal to cut oil output by 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd) was adopted last winter by OPEC, Russia and nine other global producers. The agreement was due to end in March 2018, having already been extended once.

In other energy trading, added 0.4 cents, or 0.3%, to $1.838 a gallon, while inched up 1.0 cent, or 0.5%, to $2.091 a gallon.

jumped 4.8 cents, or 1.7%, to $2.954 per million British thermal units, as investors speculated due later in the session will show the largest drop on record as cold weather boosted demand.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.