Oil prices rose in early Asian trade on Thursday after surging to the highest settlement in 2023 in the previous session as a steep drop in U.S. crude stocks added to worries of tight global supplies.
Brent crude futures climbed 16 cents to $96.71 a barrel by 0001 GMT.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 rose 20 cents to $93.88.
U.S. crude stocks fell by 2.2 million barrels last week to 416.3 million barrels, government data showed, far exceeding the 320,000-barrel drop analysts expected in a Reuters poll.
Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub, delivery point for U.S. crude futures, fell by 943,000 barrels in the week to just under 22 million barrels, the lowest since July 2022, data showed.
Persons:
Cushing, Vladimir Putin
Organizations:
Brent, . West Texas, Cushing, Organization of, Petroleum
Locations:
Oklahoma, Saudi Arabia, Russia, OPEC