Oil prices advance amid rising crude inventories

Oil prices advanced on Wednesday in Asia after the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that US crude oil inventories rose sharply last week.

US Crude Oil WTI Futures rose 1.4% to $50.64 by 12:40 AM ET (04:40 GMT). International Brent Oil Futures climbed 1.9% to $55.02.

In its weekly report, the API said crude stockpiles rose by 6 million barrels for the week ended Feb. 7.

The API snapshot serves as guide ahead of the official government inventories numbers, which come out later in the day.

The Energy Information Administration to report a rise in inventories of about 3 million barrels, according to forecasts compiled by Investing.com.

On the coronavirus front, China said the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose to 1,113 as of Feb. 11, with 97 additional fatalities reported.

Confirmed cases of the disease in mainland China rose to 44,653.

It was the lowest daily number of new coronavirus cases since late January.

Both US and Brent fell to their lowest levels in 13 months earlier this week amid demand concerns from the outbreak. Despite today’s gains, both benchmarks are down more than 20% from highs reached in January.