Oil futures cut losses after weekly US inventory data

US oil and product inventories fell sharply during the latest reference week, government data showed.

Commercial crude oil stockpiles Stateside declined by 1.4m barrels to reach 535.7m barrels over the week ending on 27 may, according to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy´s statistical arm.

Gasoline inventories fell by 1.5m barrels a day and those of distillates by another 1.3m barrels.

Over the same week, oil imports increased by 524,000 barrels per day to reach 7.8m barrels a day.

Refineries operated at 89.8% of their operable capacity, the DoE said.

That more bullish than expected set of data saw crude oil futures trim their gains to stand down by just 0.719% to $48.66 per barrel on the ICE.