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1st LD Writethru: Oil prices rise as U.S. supplies fall

Xinhua, May 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Oil prices gained Thursday as government data showed that U.S. inventories dropped last week.

U.S. crude supplies of last week decreased 2.8 million barrels to 479.4 million, 86.4 million barrels more than a year earlier, according to Energy Information Administration (EIA)'s Wednesday weekly report.

Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the U. S. contract lost 430,000 barrels to 60.01 million barrels. U.S. crude production rose 304,000 barrels to 9.566 million barrels a day that week.

Upbeat U.S. economic data also supported the market. In the week ending May 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 282,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week's revised level, exceeding market consensus, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

Analysts are closely watching the potential growing export from Iraqi. Iraq plans to boost crude exports by about 26 percent to a record 3.75 million barrels a day in June, according to shipping programs.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery moved up 17 cents to settle at 57.68 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for July delivery increased 52 cents to close at 62.58 dollars a barrel. Endite