Oil keeps gains after US crude inventories data

Oil prices rose on Wednesday, and shrugged off the rising US dollar, and kept gains following the release of the EIA weekly report.

The US Energy Information Administration reported today that crude inventories fell 400K barrels to 484.7 million during the past week, while analysts forecast a drop by 4.1 million barrels.

While the American Petroleum Institute (API) revealed yesterday in preliminary data that the US crude inventories fell 2.5 million barrels during the same period.

The dollar index rose against a basket of major currencies by 0.6% to 90.7 points as of 18:07 GMT, after hitting a high of 90.8 points and a low of 90.1 points.

As of 18:01 GMT, WTI crude June futures rose 1.6% to $66.3 a barrel, with a day high of $66.6 and a low of $64.9.

Brent June futures rose 1.5% to $69.6 a barrel, after hitting a day high of $69.9 and a low of $68.1.