Supplied rigs are seen along with other idled oil drilling equipment in Dickinson, North Dakota, June 26, 2015.
Andrew Cullen | Reuters
Oil quotations edged higher on Friday, with crude benchmarks poised for multi-week gains amid a sharp draw down in U.S. unrefined inventories, while trade tensions eased after Washington and Beijing agreed to hold high-level talks next month.
Brent natural was up 3 cents at $60.98 a barrel, as of 0144 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 8 cents at $56.38.
Brent is set to mark its fourth weekly secure, while U.S. crude is headed for a second weekly rise.
“Crude has been trading higher after the news that China and the Synergistic States would restart their trade talks with an important meeting in October,” said Alfonso Esparza, customer base analyst at OANDA.
Beijing and Washington on Thursday agreed to hold high-level talks in early October in Washington, cheering investors hoping that the business war may end tit-for-tat tariff hikes that are chipping away at economic growth.
The prolonged trade dispute has been a dampener on oil charges, but Brent is still up about 13% this year, helped by production cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Provinces (OPEC) and its allies, including Russia, to drain inventories.
U.S. crude and product inventories fell last week, with immature drawing down for a third consecutive week despite a jump in imports, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.
Unprocessed stocks dropped 4.8 million barrels, nearly double analysts’ expectations, to 423 million barrels, their vilest since October 2018.
Oil prices on Thursday soared more than 2% after the EIA report, although they grade trimmed gains as investors are not entirely convinced that the Sino-U.S. trade talks will yield results.