Crude oil prices steadied in early Asia trade Thursday after jumping overnight on a U.S. report that suggested the global oil glut is dwindling.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in June CLM6, +0.45% traded at $43.88 a barrel, up $0.08 in the Globex electronic session. June Brent crude LCOM6, +0.68% on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.07 to $45.87 a barrel.
Data from the Energy Information Administration showed the U.S. production of crude fell for the sixth straight week to 8.95 million barrels in the week ending April 15.
According to Stuart Ive, a client manager at OM Financial, “It is only natural some traders in early Asia trade are looking to take profit but there are many positive signs that the market is starting to rebalance.”
The oil rally and data on U.S. crude inventories sent Asian shares up 4 percent to a 5-1/2-month high. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.8 percent, touching its highest since early November while Japan's Nikkei gained 2.6 percent. Australian shares rose 0.9 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.8 percent and Shanghai rose 0.4 percent.
IEA
Wall Street shares ended just below 2 percent off a record-high close on Wednesday as the rebound in oil prices and positive earnings reports helped spur investor optimism.
The S&P 500 gained 0.08 percent to 2,102.4 bringing its gain since mid-February to 15 percent.
U.S. crude CLc1 rose above $44 a barrel to touch their highest since November. Brent crude LCOc1 poked above $46 for their highest in five months.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that 2016 would see the biggest fall in non-OPEC production in years which should help rebalance a market that has been weighed down by oversupply. According to IEA's chief Fatih Birol low oil prices had cut investment by about 40 percent in the past two years, with severe drops in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Russia.