Investing.com - Crude prices held gains in Asia on Thursday as investors digested U.S. stockpiles data and looked for more cues from major producers on chances for an output freeze.
Crude oil for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 0.21% to $43.67 a barrel. On the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent oil for November delivery edged up 0.46% to $46.06 a barrel.
Overnight, West Texas Intermediate oil futures pared losses, moving off a one-week low, in North American trade on Wednesday, after data showed that oil supplies in the U.S. unexpectedly fell.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories fell by 559,000 barrels in the week ended September 9. Market analysts' expected a crude-stock increase of 3.8 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a supply increase of 1.4 million barrels.
Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the key delivery point for NYMEX crude, fell by 1.245 million barrels last week, the EIA said. Total U.S. crude oil inventories stood at 510.8 million barrels as of last week, which the EIA considered to be “historically high levels for this time of year”.
The report also showed that gasoline inventories increased by 567,000 barrels, compared to expectations for a gain of 343,000 barrels, while distillate stockpiles rose by 4.617 million barrels, compared to forecasts for an increase of 1.543 million.
Oil traders continued to weigh prospects that major oil producing nations will freeze output to support the market when they meet later this month.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), led by Saudi Arabia and other big Middle East crude exporters, will meet non-OPEC producers led by Russia at informal talks in Algeria between September 26 and 28.
Chances that the upcoming meeting would yield any action to reduce the global glut appeared minimal, according to market experts. Instead, most believe that oil producers will continue to monitor the market and possibly postpone freeze talks to the official OPEC meeting in Vienna on November 30.
An attempt to jointly freeze production levels earlier this year failed after Saudi Arabia backed out over Iran's refusal to take part of the initiative, underscoring the difficulty for political rivals to forge consensus.