Oil prices edged up about 1% on Wednesday from a five-month low in the prior session on a much bigger-than-expected weekly withdrawal from U.S. crude storage.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said energy firms pulled 4.3 million barrels of crude from stockpiles during the week ended Dec. 8.
That compares with a 0.7-million barrel withdrawal forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll, a 2.3-million barrel decrease in the American Petroleum Institute (API) trade group’s survey, a 10.2-million barrel increase during the same week last year and a five-year (2018-2022) average increase of 0.4 million barrels for this time of year.
