* Brent, WTI up over 3 pct, extend Monday's 3 pct rise
* EIA reports 4.1 mln bbls US crude drawdown
* Analysts expected crude decline of 2.4 mln bbls
* Fading Brexit fear, Norway strike, Venezuela crisis help
* Big gasoline build also surprises market on bearish side
(New throughout; updates prices and adds widening discount for
longer-dated oil)
By Barani Krishnan
NEW YORK, June 29 (Reuters) - Oil prices jumped more than 3
percent on Wednesday, with Brent crude rising above the
psychological $50 a barrel mark, after a larger-than-expected
drawdown in U.S. crude inventories.
Fading concerns over Britain's exit from the European Union,
potential for an oil workers' strike in Norway and a crisis in
Venezuela's energy sector added support to crude futures.
While spot contracts in key benchmarks Brent and U.S. crude
rallied, the premium for longer-dated oil spiked too as traders
bet crude in storage will fetch better prices in coming months.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that
crude stockpiles fell 4.1 million barrels in the week to June
24, the sixth consecutive week of drawdowns. EIA/S
That was more than the 2.4 million barrels expected by
analysts in a Reuters poll. API/S
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up $1.62, or 3.3 percent,
at $50.20 per barrel by 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT).
U.S. crude's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1
rose $1.60, or 3.4 percent, to $49.45.
It was a second straight day of gains for Brent and WTI,
which have risen about 6 percent or more each since Monday's
settlement, paring much of the 8 percent lost in the previous
two sessions after the Brexit vote.
Among longer-dated oil futures, the discount for December
WTI versus December 2017 held near the almost three month high
above $2.40 a barrel seen on Tuesday.
"We played on that curve to widen out and it was good for
us," said Tariq Zahir, crude spreads trader for Tyche Capital
Advisors in New York.
The discount in nearby oil versus forward, known as
contango, has widened as traders took advantage of cheap freight
to store oil on tankers on expectations of further price gains
by 2017 as a crude glut abates.
Heating oil futures HOc1 , also known as ultralow sulfur
diesel, rose 3.8 percent, leading the oil complex, after a 1.8
million barrels decline in stockpiles of distillates, which
include ULSD. Analysts had expected a 14,000-barrel build
instead.
Despite that, some traders were bearish on their longer-term
view of oil as the EIA also reported an unseasonably large rise
of 1.4 million barrels in gasoline USOILG=ECI versus analysts'
expectations for a 58,000-barrel draw.
On the East Coast, gasoline stockpiles rose to record
levels.
"I am still unimpressed with overall crude draws for June,"
said Scott Shelton, energy futures broker with ICAP (LON:IAP) in Durham,
North Carolina. "With 16.7 million barrels per day of crude runs
and production declines, we should have larger drawdowns for Q2.
That has simply not happened."
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GRAPHIC on Brent crude oil contango http://tmsnrt.rs/2918al1
TAKE A LOOK-World oil gluts persists despite disruptions
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