Investing.com - Oil prices were lower during North American morning hours on Wednesday, holding on to losses after data showed that U.S. crude supplies rose for the third week in a row last week.
Crude oil for March delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange shed 45 cents, or nearly 0.9%, to $52.73 a barrel by 10:35AM ET (15:35GMT), after rising 43 cents, or 0.8%, a day earlier. Prices were at around $52.90 prior to the release of the inventory data.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for March delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London dipped 53 cents, or 1%, to $54.92 a barrel. The international benchmark gained 21 cents, or around 0.4%, on Tuesday.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories rose by 2.9 million barrels in the week ended January 20. Market analysts' expected a crude-stock gain of 2.8 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a supply increase of 2.9 million barrels.
Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the key delivery point for Nymex crude, decreased by 284,000 barrels last week, the EIA said.
Total U.S. crude oil inventories stood at 488.3 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 6.8 million barrels, compared to expectations for a gain of 0.5 million barrels.
For distillate inventories including diesel, the EIA reported a gain of 76,000 barrels.
Futures have been trading in a narrow range around the low-to-mid $50s over the past month as sentiment in oil markets has been torn between expectations of a rebound in U.S. shale production and hopes that oversupply may be curbed by output cuts announced by major global producers.
U.S. drilling activity has risen by more than 6% since mid-2016, taking it back to levels seen in late 2014, raising concerns that the ongoing rebound in U.S. shale production could derail efforts by other major producers to rebalance global oil supply and demand.
OPEC and non-OPEC countries have made a strong start to lowering their oil output under the first such pact in more than a decade, energy ministers said over the weekend as producers look to reduce oversupply and support prices.
Ministers said that 1.5 million barrels a day of the roughly 1.8 million in cuts pledged by OPEC and non-OPEC countries have already been taken out of the market.
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 to 32.5 million for the next six months.
The deal, if carried out as planned, should reduce global supply by about 2%.
Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for February sank 3.2 cents, or 2.1% to $1.525 a gallon, while February heating oil slumped 3.4 cents, or 2.1%, to $1.606 a gallon.
Natural gas futures for March delivery rose 5.1 cents, or about 1.6%, to $3.346 per million British thermal units, as weather forecasts turned colder, boosting near-term demand for the heating fuel.