Investing.com - Oil prices came off the highest levels of the session on Wednesday morning, after data showed that U.S. crude supplies rose more than forecast last week.
Crude oil for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange added 25 cents, or around 0.5%, to $51.04 a barrel by 10:35AM ET (15:35GMT). Prices were at around $51.35 prior to the release of the inventory data. U.S. crude prices fell to $50.71 on Tuesday, a level not seen since December 16.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for March delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London tacked on 38 cents, or 0.7%, to $54.08 a barrel, after tumbling to $53.58 a day earlier, the lowest since December 15.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories rose by 4.1 million barrels in the week ended January 6. Market analysts' expected a crude-stock gain of 1.2 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a supply increase of 1.5 million barrels.
Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the key delivery point for Nymex crude, decreased by 579,000 barrels last week, the EIA said.
Total U.S. crude oil inventories stood at 483.1 million barrels as of last week, which the EIA considered to be at the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.
The report also showed that gasoline inventories increased by 5.0 million barrels, compared to expectations for a gain of 1.7 million barrels.
For distillate inventories including diesel, the EIA reported a gain of 8.4 million barrels.
Oil prices are down nearly 6% so far this week amid fears that rising supplies from Iran and Iraq combined with increased U.S. output would undermine OPEC's efforts to curb a global supply glut.
January 1 marked the official start of the deal agreed by OPEC and non-OPEC member countries such as Russia in November last year to reduce output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day.
The deal, if carried out as planned, should reduce global supply by about 2%.
However, some traders remain skeptical that the planned cuts will be as substantial as the market currently expects.