Oil Gains Modestly on Hopes of More Bullish US Data

Oil futures rose in Asia on Thursday, building on overnight gains, as a U.S. industry group said domestic crude inventories fell solidly last week.

--February light, sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange was recently up 0.4% at $64.25 a barrel in the Globex trading session. March Brent rose 0.3% to $69.60.

--The American Petroleum Institute said U.S. oil inventories fell 5.1 million barrels last week. The government's reading due Thursday is projected by analysts to show a drop of 2.3 million.

Write to Biman Mukherji at biman.mukherji@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 17, 2018 22:54 ET (03:54 GMT)