US oil price rises amid mixed data

Brent contracts for April delivery settled down $0.22 cents while WTI March contracts settled up $0.10 cents per barrel.

The American Petroleum Institute reportedly said that US crude supplies fell by 3.26 million barrels last week, but Bloomberg predicts that the US Energy Information Administration (EIA)-which will release inventory data later today-will show a stockpile increase of 3.5 million barrels. Meanwhile, the world awaits whether Iran and Iraq might join OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar and Venezuela in agreeing to cap current production levels.

Brent LCOc1, the global benchmark for crude, was up 20 cents at $34.70 a barrel by 12:37 p.m. EST (1737 GMT), having risen more than $1.20 earlier.

Mousavi said four million barrels were shipped to Europe and the remaining 3.1 million barrels were shipped to Iran’s traditional clients. The EIA said gasoline inventories rose by 3 millin barrels last week while distillate inventories rose 1.4 million barrels.

U.S. crude imports rose last week by 795,000 barrels per day.

At the Cushing Oil Hub in Oklahoma, inventories rose by only 36,000, defying expectations for an increase of 500,000. It represented the fourth straight week of weekly declines and the second consecutive week that output dipped below the 9.2 million bpd threshold.

Thursday’s bearish EIA data, if followed through by more US crude stockpile growth, could negate the market’s hopes in seeing continued price recovery from the production freeze plan, traders and analysts said. The Wall Street Journal reports that Iran and Iraq have yet to commit either way.

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