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Oil Futures Settle Sharply Higher Despite Surge In Crude Stockpiles
(RTTNews) - Despite data showing an unexpected increase in U.S. crude inventories in the week ended January 6th, oil prices rose sharply on Wednesday on hopes about global economic recovery and the possible impact of sanctions on Russian crude output.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for February ended higher by $2.29 or about 3.1% at $77.41 a barrel, gaining for a fifth straight session.
Brent crude futures were up $2.82 or 3.52% at $82.92 a barrel a little while ago.
Data released by U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) this morning showed crude inventories in the U.S. increased by nearly 19 million barrels last week, about 11 times more than the previous week, and against expectations of a drop in stockpiles.
Gasoline stockpiles rose by 4.114 million barrels last week, more than two times the expected increase, while distillate stockpiles dropped by 1.069 million barrels, about 2.1 times the expected decline.
The EIA data also showed that inventories in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve saw a drop of 800,000 barrels last week.
Data from the American Petroleum Institute showed on Tuesday that U.S. crude oil stockpiles jumped by 14.9 million barrels in the week ended January 6, more than four times from the previous week's level.
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