Oil stable

Singapore : Oil prices were stable on Wednesday, but were below the more than three-year highs reached the previous session as rising U.S. fuel inventories and production weighed on an otherwise bullish market.

Brent crude oil futures were at $73.89 per barrel at 0455 GMT, up 3 cents from their last close but around $1.60 below the November-2014 high of $75.47 a barrel reached the previous day. U.S. WTI futures were flat at $67.7 63 per barrel, but off the late-2014 highs of $69.56 a barrel marked earlier in April.

Despite Wednesday´s dips, which traders said were also a result of profit-taking after Tuesday´s highs, many analysts say the period of oversupply that started in 2014 has now ended due to supply disruptions and also strong demand. That has been driven by production cuts led by the OPEC which were introduced in 2017 with the aim of propping up the market, but also because of political risk to supplies in the Middle East, Venezuela and Africa.