World oil prices pulled back in volatile trading today despite a surprisingly upbeat US supply report a day earlier.
At one stage, Brent North Sea crude for June delivery had hit a four-month high at $63.29 a barrel, but later stood at $63.15, down 17 cents from yesterday.
US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in May sank 13 cents to $56.26 a barrel.
Crude futures had rallied sharply yesterday after the US government's Department of Energy said commercial crude inventories rose by 1.29 million barrels in the week to April 10, much lower than the surge expected by analysts.
Increases in US reserves are indicative of slack demand in the world's top crude consumer.
The department also said US oil production fell by 20,000 barrels, or 0.2%, to 9.38 million barrels per day, in the week ending April 10.
Analysts said the decline should help ease the global crude oversupply, which led to a collapse in prices of more than 50% between June and January.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) this week cut its supply forecast for non-OPEC countries, citing a lower outlook for US and Canadian output and the "worsening conflict" in Yemen.
The agency also bumped up by 90,000 barrels per day its forecast for 2015 petroleum demand. The IEA now expects 2015 consumption of 93.6 million barrels a day, up 1.1 million barrels a day for the year.
