Oil prices rise on concerns about tightening oil supply

Oil rose in Asia on Thursday morning as concerns about tight global supplies overshadowed the rise in U.S. gasoline and distillate inventories. Brent rose 0.36% to $112.84 a barrel, while WTI rose 0.22% to $110.02 a barrel. On Wednesday, U.S. Energy Information Administration data on U.S. crude supply showed a 2.762 million barrel drop in inventories for the week ended June 24, while gasoline and distillate inventories rose. Some analysts expect further supply disruptions, such as the unrest in Libya and Ecuador, to support oil prices. However, concerns about slowing economic growth continued to limit gains. “Recent aggressive rate hikes by central banks and the slowdown in global economic growth have weighed on commodity markets,” Tina Teng, an analyst at CMC Markets, told Reuters. “Bets that more oil will be used from the US oil reserves and that OPEC will increase oil production were also factors that limited the upward momentum of the oil market,” he said. The report shared by the American Petroleum Institute the day before had shown that there was a decrease of 3,799 million barrels in stocks.