London — Oil prices hit multiyear highs on Thursday despite warnings that a 13% rally since early December was close to running its course. Brent crude futures rose 27c to $69.47 a barrel at 10.39 GMT, its highest since an intraday spike in May 2015. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $63.94, up 37c to their highest since December 2014. Sentiment was boosted by a surprise drop in US production and lower US crude inventories in official data on Wednesday. "The undeniable fact is that [US] crude oil inventories are at their lowest level since August 2015," said PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga. "Opec is edging ever closer to its desired target of reducing OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] industrial stocks to the five-year average." Data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday showed that crude inventories fell by almost 5-million barrels to 419.5-million barrels in the week to January 5. US production also...
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