Crude oil prices opened higher Thursday, rebounding from major losses that came on Wednesday amid a surprise increase in the U.S.' crude inventories.
The international benchmark Brent crude oil was trading at $61.03 per barrel at 0622 GMT for a 1.02% gain after it closed Wednesday at $59.76 a barrel.
American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at $51.64 a barrel at the same time, posting a 0.8% increase, after ending the previous session at $51.23 per barrel.
Brent crude fell around 4.1% on Wednesday, while WTI lost approximately 3.8% after crude oil inventories in the U.S. showed a surprise increase despite the market expectation of a decline.
Commercial crude oil inventories in the U.S. increased by 2.2 million barrels, or 0.5%, to 485.5 million barrels for the week ending June 7, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) late Wednesday.
The market expectation for the crude inventories was a decline of 0.5 million barrels.
The EIA data also showed that crude oil production in the U.S. showed decline, easing some of the worries that the glut of supply in the global oil market is on the rise.
The U.S.' crude oil production decreased by 98,000 barrels per day (bpd) to around 12.3 million bpd (mbpd) for the week ending June 7, according to the EIA data.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr