Investing.com – Crude oil prices settled higher on Wednesday, as traders cheered data showing an unexpected draw in U.S. crude supplies pointing to a recovery in refinery activity and exports following disruptions due to Hurricane Harvey in August.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for November delivery rose by 26 cents to settle at $52.14 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent lost 51 cents to trade at $57.41 a barrel.
Crude prices initially struggled to capitalise on a report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showing crude stockpiles unexpectedly fell last week as investors weighed the dip in crude stockpiles against a rise in gasoline inventories for the first time in four weeks.
Inventories of U.S. crude fell by roughly 1.9m barrels in the week ended Sept. 22, confounding expectations of a rise of 3.4m barrels.
Gasoline inventories, one of the products that crude is refined into, rose by roughly 1.107m barrels, missing expectations of a draw of 921,000 barrels while distillate stockpiles fell by 814,000 barrels, below expectations of a decline of 2.2m barrels.
The draw in U.S. crude inventories comes against a three-week build of stockpiles as refinery shutdowns due to Hurricane Harvey weighed on demand for crude oil, the primary input at refiners.
The lull in refinery activity has since improved while the widening spread, between brent and crude oil prices to nearly $6 continued to drive exports, underpinning crude oil prices.
The U.S. exported a record 1.5m barrels per day of crude oil last week, the EIA said Wednesday, a sum larger than the output of several Opec member countries.