Oil maintains gains ahead of EIA weekly report

Oil prices continued to rise as the US market opened today, to extend gains for the second straight day, while these gains remain limited due to a sharp surge in the US crude inventories, which stoked market concerns over a US supply glut, ahead of the reveal of the official US inventories data by the EIA in its weekly report later today.

WTI rose to $53.10 a barrel as of 12:50 GMT, from the opening of $52.93, with an intraday high of $53.30 and a low of $52.80.

WTI closed higher by 0.25% yesterday, its first straight daily gain in 3 days, after OPEC chief executive Mohammed Barkindo's remarks regarding deeper output cuts

The American Petroleum Institute (API) announced yesterday in preliminary data that the US commercial crude inventories surged by 10.5 million barrels during the week that ended in October 11, in the second straight increase, higher than forecasts of 2.9 million barrels.

While the total inventories rose to 426 million barrels, the highest level since August 16, to raise concerns about domestic demand in the US.

The official data on the US crude inventories and production levels will be released later today, in the US Energy Information Administration's weekly report, with forecasts of a rise in inventories by 2.7 million barrels for the fifth straight week, as production levels rose by 200,000 bpd in the previous week, to reach the US all-time highest record at 12.6 million bpd.