Oil futures jump following slump in weekly US oil inventories

US weekly oil stockpiles dropped by the most since July according to the latest government statistics.

Commercial crude oil inventories fell by 6.8m barrels over the seven days ending on 5 June, according to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy’s statistical arm.

That came alongside a 2.9m barrel drop in weekly gasoline inventories.

In comparison to the previous week, imports dropped by 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) last week.

In its monthly oil market report, released earlier on Wednesday morning, the Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries reiterated its view that non-OPEC oil supplies were seen increasing by 680,000 barrels a day this year.

In parallel, the cartel forecast global oil demand would grow by 1.18m bpd in 2015.

Demand for OPEC crude in 2015 was projected at 29.3m bpd, unchanged from the previous report and representing a gain of 0.3m bpd over last year.

As of 16:00 front month West Texas crude futures were higher by 1.48% to $60.97 per barrel in NYMEX trading.

“This also looks like a bit of rapid short-covering, and should production rebound in August, we see a dip,” Gaurav Sharma, Energy&Oil analyst at Sharecast said

Overnight, the US Department of Energy noted that the country’s oil production stood at a robust 9.6m bpd in May, but that it is expected to "generally decline" through early 2016.

That compared to Saudi oil production of 10.3m bpd in May, according to Saudi Aramco and US oil output of 8.38m bpd in the same week of 2014.