Forexpros – Crude oil futures rose in Asian trading Thursday, bolstered by U.S. government supply data as well as by hopes Greece will pull through its debt crisis.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at USD98.79 a barrel, up 0.08%.
The commodity hit an earlier session high of USD99.17 and a low of USD98.71.
The U.S. Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude oil inventories climbed by 0.03 million barrels in the previous week, below the expected 2.5 million barrel increase.
Those figures come in wake of the American Petroleum Institute’s report that it registered drawdown of 4.5 million barrels in the week ending Feb. 3, defying a Reuters poll for a 2.4 million-barrel increase, thus pushing up crude prices on supply concerns.
Furthermore, while Greece continues to negotiate terms to receive bailout money from multilateral institutions, energy markets felt success was near despite a string of delays.
Cold weather across much of Europe also buoyed the commodity.
On the ICE Futures Exchange, Brent oil futures for March delivery were down 0.11% and trading at USD117.56 a barrel, up USD18.77 from its U.S. counterpart.
The gap in price between the two contracts is pushing very close toward the higher end of a range between a nearly USD20.00 all-time high and a historical spread of USD1.00.
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