Oil rises on strong factory activity, crude drawdown forecast - Reuters

Oil rises on strong factory activity, crude drawdown forecast - Reuters:

Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday as better-than-expected U.S. manufacturing activity data spurred hope for a post-pandemic economic recovery, and as analysts forecast a sixth weekly drawdown in U.S. crude inventories.

Brent crude LCOc1 futures settled up 30 cents at $45.58 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures CLc1 settled at $42.76 a barrel, up 15 cents.

“Everyone is looking for a draw, of one degree or another, in the API this afternoon,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York. “The manufacturing numbers and the bullishness around the AstraZeneca virus vaccine added to the optimism,” he said.

U.S. crude stocks were forecast to have fallen by nearly 2 million barrels last week, according to analysts in a Reuters poll ahead of weekly data from the American Petroleum Institute at 4:30 p.m. ET (2030 GMT) and the government on Wednesday.