Oil futures: July Brent rallies after bullish EIA report

London (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) - July Brent jumped after the release of a bullish US oil report Wednesday that showed sizeable losses in crude, gasoline and distillate stocks, but the front month crude future still remained more than $0.50 below its intraday high.

By 1805 UK time, July Brent was trading at $68.60/b, up from a low of $68.03/b before the Energy Information Administration released the report at 15.30pm.

But the front month crude future was still down around $0.50/b from its intraday high of $69.17/b, and was still slightly below Tuesday's settle of $68.65/b.

Russia Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Members of the OPEC+ group of oil producers group will consider the possibility of Iranian oil returning to the global market

Russia's Novak told reporters OPEC+ was exploring the possibility of Iran's return to the global oil market; '…potentially we bear in mind such a possibility. Iran has the recovery potential. We have always stated that anti-Iran sanctions are discriminatory,' Novak told reporters.

'We have to consider Iran's potential,' referring to a potential Iranian quota.

Iran may be holding as much as 69 million barrels at sea, according to estimates from E.A. Gibson Shipbrokers, which could be released if US sanctions are lifted, noted analysts at DNB Markets.

But the signing of the nuclear deal may take time.

Other bearish factors remain the Indian outbreak, with reports suggesting the world's fourth largest crude consumer is running out of vaccines.

The number of daily vaccines given has fallen by two-thirds over the past few weeks to just 1 million a day, meaning it will take more than a year to inocculate half of its population.