Oil prices rose today extending their gains the release of higher than expected US crude inventories data for the fourth consecutive week.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) announced yesterday in preliminary data that US oil inventories rose by 4.1 million barrels during the last week.

While the Energy Information Administration's official data that was released today showed that oil inventories rose by around 2.9 million barrels, beating forecasts of by 2.4 million. 

Otherwise, the dollar index held at 99.1 points as of 16:53 GMT, with a session-high of 99.1 and a low of 98.9 points.

WTI rose by to $53.2 a barrel as of 16:47 GMT, with a session-high of $53.7 and low of $52.3.

Brent rose by 1.1% to $58.8 a barrel, with a high of $59.3 and low of $57.9.

The US dollar stabilized against a basket of major currencies today amid the wide anticipation of the US Federal Reserve meeting minutes.

Fed's Chairman Jerome Powell said yesterday the bank will announce soon short-term treasury bills purchases from banks and hedge funds to increase their reserves and to ease liquidity restrictions.

Powell stressed that these measures shouldn’t be confused with the quantitative easing as claimed by some in the markets, as the Fed is expanding its balance sheet to end any funding gap.

The Fed meeting minutes will be released shortly today, while experts are eager to gain insight on the Fed's last meeting, which resulted in the second US rate cut since the 2008 global financial crisis.

As of 17:28 GMT, the dollar index held at 99.1 points, with a session-high of 99.1 and a low of 98.9 points.

The US Federal Reserve September meeting minutes revealed that some of the banks monetary policymakers are concerned that the markets may be expecting further rate cuts than the Fed will deliver.

The meeting minutes also showed sharp divisions between members are over the future rate cut path, especially after delivering 2 cuts during this year.

While market experts are betting that the Fed will continue to cut the rates for the third time this year at its October meeting.

The minutes also showed that the Fed might seek a better alignment of market expectations regarding the policy rate path with policymakers’ own expectations for that path due to the misunderstanding.

The Fed also cited concerns over the slowdown in economic growth and the mounting recession risks due to the impact of trade war, in addition to the low inflation and the manufacturing activity.

The Fed approved at the September meeting a quarter point rate cut for a range between 1.75% to 2%.

The British pound stabilized against the US dollar, as uncertainty still overcasts its shadow around the UK exit from the European Union.

The Brexit deadline is by the end of October, while still London and Brussels has not yet agree on a final exit deal.

British PM Boris Johnson insists on delivering on the will of the people by implementing the Brexit as scheduled while the parliament demands that Johnson request a postponement for the Brexit until the end of January 2020 in case of a no deal.

Otherwise, a new round of the US-China trade talks will begin tomorrow in Washington, in attempts to reach a trade deal that will end the ongoing trade dispute between the two countries.

By 19:02 GMT, GBP/USD held at $1.221, with an intraday high of $1.2291 and a low of $1.2162.