Oil futures: Crude rallies on US stock draw, Brent eyes $74/b

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – Crude oil futures in afternoon London trade Thursday recovered earlier losses after the EIA posted a big crude draw for the seventh successive week despite crude production rising 500,000 bpd in the past three weeks.

Front-month September Brent futures were trading at $73.90/barrel (1640  GMT), compared to Wednesday's settle of $73.43/b after falling briefly to $72.16/b earlier.

At the same time, August WTI was trading $72.70/b, up from Wednesday's settle of $72.20/b.

Earlier in the session the market sell-off continued, which at the lows saw prices down by around 7% from the multi-year highs seen on Tuesday.

The mini-rally comes as the EIA posted data showing crude stocks fell by 6.9 million bpd in the past seven days - the seventh successive week of draws.

And those draws come as production rose 200,000 bpd over the period, taking total production to 11.3 million bpd.

The market has been volatile this week as traders mull the likely outcome of the breakdown in OPEC+ talks regarding increasing production by winding back earlier cuts.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE remain deadlocked on the deal to add 400,000 bpd in August and a total of 2 million barrels by year-end.

As it stands, there will be no production increase from August, and the current OPEC+ Declaration of Cooperation runs until April 2022.

The OPEC+ producer group began lifting production curbs in the second quarter with an extra 350,000 bpd in May, 350,000 bpd in June, and a further 400,000 bpd for July.