After several days of declines, oil prices rose after API reported a larger-than-anticipated drop in US crude inventories. Credit: David Shankbone.

Oil prices have increased after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a larger-than-expected decrease in US crude oil and gasoline inventories.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose 51 cents to $62.89 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 increased 54 cents to $57.94 per barrel, Reuters reported.

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Data released by API highlighted a fall in US crude inventories by 7.2 million barrels in the week ended 6 September to 421.9 million, which is against analysts’ expectations of a decrease of 2.7 million barrels, according to a Reuters poll.

OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley was quoted by Reuters as saying: “Oil should remain supported in Asian trading, mostly supported by the overnight API crude inventory data.”

Halley added that he was anticipating a drop of 4.8 million barrels when official numbers are released by the EIA later on Wednesday.

Crude oil stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub dropped by 1.4 million barrels, while refinery crude runs increased by 208,000boe/d, API noted. Gasoline stocks were down by 4.5 million barrels, when compared to analysts’ expectations of an 847,000-barrel decline.

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Prices have increased sharply before US president Donald Trump fired national security adviser John Bolton saying that he disagreed ‘strongly’ with him.

They were further boosted after Saudi Arabia new energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that the agreement with other producers to cut production by a combined 1.2Mboe/d would be maintained.

Following re-imposed sanctions by the US, Iran’s oil exports dropped by more than 80%.