Oil prices retain support

Crude oil prices remained supported near multi-month highs on Friday, as traders remained globally optimistic regarding the re-balancing of the market.

The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude November contract was at $51.64 a barrel, up 8 cents or about 14% by 06:35 a.m. ET (10:35 GMT), just off the previous session’s five-month high of $52.86.

Elsewhere, Brent oil for November delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London was steady at $57.16 a barrel, not far from a more than two-month peak of $58.88 reached on Tuesday.

Prices was boosted after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday an unexpected decline in crude oil inventories, athough domestic crude production edged up to the highest level since July 2015.

The commodity has been well supported in recent weeks amid growing optimism that the crude market was well on its way towards rebalancing as data showed strong compliance from major producers with their supply cut agreement.

In May, <a href=’https://theenergyyear.com/companies-institutions/<a href=’https://theenergyyear.com/companies-institutions/opec/’>opec/’>OPEC and non-OPEC members led by Russia agreed to extend production cuts of 1.8 million barrels per day for a period of nine months until March 2018 in a bid to reduce global oil inventories and support oil prices.

Elsewhere, gasoline futures were little changed at $1.619 a gallon, while natural gas futures gained 0.30% to $3.026 per million British thermal units.