Sigh of relief: Brent surpasses $50 and keeps rising

Crude oil prices are still rising this morning on the back of yesterday's US stockpile data.

Global benchmark Brent crude lifted back over $50 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices edged closer to $48 a barrel.

After rising more than three per cent overnight, at the time of publishing, Brent was up 1.08 per cent at $50.76 a barrel while WTI was trading 1.31 per cent higher at $47.95 a barrel.

"A surprisingly big drawdown helped ease concerns about rising US production worsening the global supply glut that Opec cuts are trying to address," said analysts at Accendo Markets.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and non-Opec producers agreed to cut their production by around 1.8m barrels per day (bpd) for the first six months of the year in order to curb the global oversupply.

Growing production of shale gas in the US has undercut the cartel's efforts, but data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) yesterday showed the biggest drawdown in US inventories for the year last week, which restored some investor confidence.

Opec will meet 25 May to decide whether to extend the supply cuts for the second half of the year. Most analysts expect an extension of the deal to go through as inventories remain too high.

BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research revised down its projections for Brent prices today.

"We bring down our forecasts to reflect the crude reality: stocks are still too high and US supply is set to recover faster than we anticipated. We now see Brent averaging $54/barrel in 2017 and $56/barrel in 2018 compared to $61 and $65 prior."

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