US crude breaks $50 a barrel for first time since June

U.S. crude rose about $50 a barrel for the first time since June on Thursday, as crude futures were underpinned by a surprisingly large drop in U.S. inventory levels during the previous session.

Brent crude futures rose 56 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $52.42 per barrel at 9:35 a.m. ET (1335 GMT), not far from the 2016 high of $52.86 set on June 9.

U.S. crude futures were up 48 cents, or 1 percent, at $50.31 a barrel, near a session peak that marked the highest level since June 24.

Both contracts extended gains after hitting their highest levels in nearly four months on Wednesday as U.S. data showed crude oil stockpiles fell 3 million barrels last week to 499.74 million barrels, confounding expectations for an increase.

Still, inventories are near record highs and even the prospect of a modest cut in production from the world’s largest exporters might not be enough to fuel a more sustained rally, analysts said.

“Optimism on the OPEC deal and surprising storage declines pushed oil prices to the upper end of the recent trading range. Both trends are temporary and unlikely to mark the easing of the oil supply glut. We see more downside than upside from today’s price levels,” said Norbert Ruecker, head of commodity research at Swiss bank Julius Baer.

Traders said a decline in prices early in Thursday’s session reflected weaker physical crude after top exporter Saudi Arabia cut the price of its crudes to Asia for November in a sign that the global fuel glut is persisting.

Hefty refinery maintenance in Europe, and the ensuing drop in demand for crude, has also put the physical North Sea market under pressure, forcing sellers to offer barrels of grades such as Forties at their weakest since July.

Overall, however, analysts said the market was well supported at current levels, especially because of the proposed output cut announced last week by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

“We expect that Saudi will shoulder the bulk of the production cuts with a reduction of 5 percent or 0.5 million barrels per day (bpd), with other Gulf States cutting by 0.3 million bpd. With Iran, Libya and Nigeria getting a ‘pass’, remaining cuts will be on the shoulders of some of the less reliable members in OPEC,” Bernstein Energy said in a note.

Barring any unforeseen output disruptions, analysts did not expect prices to shoot up much further as production remains high even with an OPEC cut.

“Resilient production in the U.S. and Russia will postpone crude market rebalancing and keep the market in surplus into 2017,” BMI Research said.

“With an insufficient demand response to counteract strong supply, the result is a downward revision of our 2017 Brent forecast to $55 per barrel from $57 per barrel,” BMI said.