Oil prices reach multi-year high

London : Oil prices hit multi-year highs yesterday despite warnings that a 13 per cent rally since early December was close to running its course.

Brent crude futures rose 27 cents to $69.47 a barrel at 1039 GMT, its highest since an intra-day spike in May 2015. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $63.94, up 37 cents to their highest since December 2014.

Sentiment was boosted by a surprise drop in U.S. production and lower U.S. crude inventories in official data on Wednesday.

“The undeniable fact is that (U.S.) crude oil inventories are at their lowest level since August 2015,” said PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga. “OPEC is edging ever closer to its desired target of reducing OECD industrial stocks to the five-year average.”

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed that crude inventories fell by almost 5 million barrels to 419.5 million barrels in the week to Jan. 5.

U.S. production also fell by 290,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 9.5 million bpd, the EIA said, despite expectations of output breaking through 10 million bpd.

The drop, likely to be because of extreme cold weather that halted some onshore output in North America, was expected to be shortlived.

But on Thursday UAE oil minister and current OPEC President Suhail al-Mazrouei said he expects the market to balance in 2018 and that the producer group is committed to its supply reduction pact until the end of this year.

Production cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia, which started in January last year and are set to continue throughout 2018, have underpinned prices.