Crude oil futures ended higher on Wednesday as data from the Weekly Petroleum Status Report of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed crude exports rose to about 5.4 million barrels per day for the week ended June 23, after seeing a volume of 4.543 million barrels per day a week earlier. Further, support also came in as Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, on Monday said it would extend its voluntary output cut of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to August. Russia and Algeria, meanwhile, are lowering their August output and export levels by 500,000 bpd and 20,000 bpd respectively.
Benchmark crude oil futures for August delivery rose $2.00 or about 2.9 percent to settle at $71.79 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for September delivery gained $0.40 or 0.5 percent to settle at $76.65 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.