New York, Sep 4 (IANS): Oil prices gained late Thursday as the rebound of US equity market bolstered investors' optimism for the economic growth of the world's largest crude-consuming nation.
The West Texas Intermediate for October delivery moved up 50 cents to settle at $46.75 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for October delivery increased 18 cents to close at $50.68 a barrel on the London ICE Future Exchange.
In the previous session, oil prices hiked despite government report showed that the US crude stockpiles increased last week, XInhua news agency reported.
The US crude supplies of last week climbed 4.7 million barrels to $455.4 mn, 95.9 million barrels more than one year before, according to the weekly report of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.
Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the US contract, lost 0.4 million barrels to 57.3 million barrels.
The US crude production fell 119,000 barrels to 9.219 million barrels a day that week.
The declining output data gave market some support.