Crude oil prices were trading at three-year highs on Wednesday, as traders awaited the release of weekly U.S. inventory data due later in the day.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude February contract was up 38 cents or about 0.60% at $63.34 a barrel by 04:45 a.m. ET (08:45 GMT), the highest since December 2014.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for March delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London gained 25 cents or about 0.36% to $68.07 a barrel, the highest since May 2015.
The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude inventories fell by 11.2 million barrels in the week ending January 5, compared to expectations for a 3.9 million barrel decline.
Market participants were looking ahead to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly U.S. crude oil inventories data, due later Wednesday amid expectations for a decline of 3.9 million barrels.
Oil prices continue to benefit from production cut efforts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia. The producers agreed in December to extend current oil output cuts until the end of 2018.
The deal to cut oil output by 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd) was adopted last winter by OPEC, Russia and nine other global producers. The agreement was due to end in March 2018, having already been extended once.
Elsewhere, gasoline futures edged up 0.10% to $1.847 a gallon, while natural gas futures gained 1.85% to $2.977 per million British thermal units.
