Oil gained after a U.S. government report showed the biggest decline in crude inventories since late July.
Source: www.worldoil.com
The weekly US crude oil inventories data released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) is one of the many reports affecting the crude oil prices, at least in the short term. For the week ended August 18, the API reported an extra-large oil inventory draw of 5.17 million barrels of US crude oil inventories, way above the 1.5 million draw estimated by analysts. Following the news, WTI crude prices advanced as much as 2.7% on Wednesday. A weaker dollar also supported the oil prices. Although crude oil prices have been on an upswing over the past five trading sessions, they are below the key $70/bbl mark and the recent high of $75/bbl.
