Oil prices rise amid falling U.S. crude stockpiles

NEW YORK, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices rose on Wednesday, as U.S. crude Oil inventories dropped last week, easing concerns over supply surplus across the board.

U.S. commercial crude Oil inventories decreased by 3.9 million barrels from the previous week, said the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday.

At 449.1 million barrels, U.S. crude Oil inventories are about 2 percent above the five-year average for this time of year.

EIA also projected that U.S. crude Oil production will average 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019 and 13 million bpd in 2020, with most of the growth coming from the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico.

The forecasts came lower from the EIA's estimates in February for both 2019 and 2020, according to its Short-term Energy Outlook report released Tuesday.

The West Texas Intermediate for April delivery rose 1.39 U.S. dollars to settle at 58.26 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for May delivery increased 0.88 dollar to close at 67.55 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.