The bank even said that global crude inventories were still edging up despite the supply disruptions, implying that there is still more oil being produced than consumed. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate futures fell 15 cents, or 0.3%, to $48.71 a barrel. Nearly 2.5 million barrels a day of supplies have been removed from the oil market this year because of outages from Canada to Nigeria, with a lot of them occurring over the past month, ANZ analyst Daniel Hynes wrote in a report dated May 19. Minutes from the US Federal Reserve's policy meeting in April that were released Wednesday showed that policymakers kept open the door to raising interest rates in June. Brent for July settlement lost 12 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $48.81 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange on Thursday. Please Wait while comments are loading. A freeze on oil output is needed to stabilize prices, Salah Khebri, minister of energy and mines for Algeria, said in an interview in Amman. Oil prices advanced to a seven-month high yesterday, supported by supply drops in Nigeria, Canada and other producers that are eroding a persistent glut. Oil prices pulled back Friday, but remained on track to end the week higher as traders continued to focus on the prospect of supply disruptions. The prices rallied for the eighth time in 10 sessions as uncontrolled forest fires are threatening to delay the return of at least one million barrels a day of Canadian oil-sands production to the market. Both oil contracts broke 2016 highs earlier in the week on the back of output cuts across the Americas, in Africa and also in Asia. Oil prices fell early on Thursday, pulled down by rising USA crude inventories, a stronger dollar and surging output from Iran to Europe and Asia. The draws took the market's attention from a crude build USOILC=ECI of 1.3 million barrels, which analysts said should have been bearish for crude prices. IG Markets analyst Bernard Aw said traders are feeling "more bullish" following the Goldman Sachs report that was published last weekend. US crude inventories rose 1.3 million barrels in the week to May 13, compared with analysts' expectations for a decrease of 2.8 million barrels and a 1.1 million-barrel drawdown reported on Tuesday by a trade group, the American Petroleum Institute. Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports in March, however, fell slightly to 7.541 million bpd from 7.553 million in February, official data showed on Wednesday.
