Oil rallies on US inventory drawdown

Oil prices at both the sides of the Atlantic rallied in Asia after a private agency report in US showed oil inventories may have dropped for a fifth straight week.

At the time of writing, WTI oil was up 47 cents or 1% at $49.16/barrel. Brent oil was up 44 cents or 0.86% at $51.31/barrel.

Prices rallied for fifth consecutive session on Tuesday and extended the rally in Asia as report by the American Petroleum Institute (API) released yesterday showed that US crude inventories likely fell for a fifth straight week, declining by 7.6 million barrels.

The actual figure contradicted consensus expectation of 2.6 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 30. The focus today is on the US government’s weekly inventory report due for release today.