Brent oil rises to $88.2 per barrel

Oil prices rose on Thursday morning after falling in the previous session, as traders continue to evaluate data on US inventories, Report informs via Interfax.

The cost of June futures for Brent oil on the London ICE Futures exchange amounted to $88.17 per barrel, which is $0.15 (0.17%) higher than the previous close.

On Wednesday, these contracts fell $0.4 (0.5%) to $88.02 per barrel.

WTI oil futures for June in e-trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) rose in price by $0.13 (0.16%) to $82.94 per barrel.

According to the results of previous trading, the cost of these contracts decreased by $0.55 (0.7%) to $82.81 per barrel.

Commercial oil reserves in the United States fell by 6.368 million barrels last week to 453.6 million barrels, the country's Department of Energy said yesterday.

This is the largest drop since January. The decline in inventories was recorded for the first time in five weeks amid an increase in oil refining volumes.

Analysts had on average expected an increase of 1.6 million barrels, according to Trading Economics. Respondents to The Wall Street Journal expected an increase of 500,000 barrels.

Gasoline reserves decreased by 0.634 million barrels and amounted to 226.7 million barrels. Meanwhile, distillate inventories rose by 1.614 million barrels to 116.6 million barrels.

Experts expected a reduction in gasoline reserves by 1.4 million barrels and distillates by 0.9 million barrels, according to Trading Economics.

Inventories at the Cushing terminal, where oil traded on the NYMEX is stored, fell by 659,000 barrels over the past week.

At the same time, gasoline demand decreased by 239,000 barrels per day, to the minimum since mid-February 8.4 million b/d, which put pressure on oil prices the day before.