The West Texas Intermediate for January delivery settled 29 cents higher at 61.22 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for February delivery rose 37 cents to close at 66.54 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
U.S. crude oil inventories dipped during the week ending Dec. 13, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report on Wednesday.
According to the Weekly Petroleum Status Report, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, decreased by 1.1 million barrels from the previous week to 446.8 million barrels.
The market also got some support from the hopes of improved outlook for crude demand in the wake of global trade progress.
Output cuts by the world's major oil producers also contributed to the upswing, experts noted.
Earlier this month, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies agreed to steepen production cuts by an additional 500,000 barrels a day, bringing the total cuts to 1.7 million barrels daily.
This additional adjustment would be effective as of Jan. 1, 2020 and is subject to full conformity by every participating country. The OPEC, Russia and other producers have been largely limiting oil output since 2017 in order to boost prices.
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