By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com – Oil prices rose for a sixth straight day on Wednesday after U.S. inventory data showed strong drawdowns for both crude and fuels last week as Americans resumed year-end travel and festivities after being assured of lower risks from Covid’s Omicron variant.

In anticipation of the positive remarks and actions by OPEC+, the global producer group for oil and gas producers in the next week’s first meeting of the year, crude prices are also trending up.

, the benchmark for U.S. crude, settled Wednesday’s trade up 58 cents, or 0.8%, at $76.56 per barrel. WTI rose more than 12 percent in the last six sessions after falling to $66.04 per barrel on Dec. 20, due to fears over an Omicron outbreak. WTI is currently up 57% for the year.

The London-traded Brent, which is the international benchmark for oil, was up by 29 cents or 0.4% to $79.23 Brent has risen more than 11% since its December 20 low of $72.87. Brent has increased 53% year-to-date.

Over the last week, U.S. health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have said that Omicron seems to be milder than either the original Covid-19 or Delta strains of the coronavirus, particularly for people who are currently vaccinated. 

Reuters figures also showed that the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in America reached a new record of 258,312. This figure was compiled from figures compiled by Reuters. However, the number of infected people was not reported.

Due to holiday travels and Christmas festivities, these last weeks of November are often strong months for diesel and gasoline consumption in America. Due to the seasonal gifts deliveries, trucking is very active at this time.

These trends were reinforced by Wednesday’s weekly oil inventory data released by the Energy Information Administration.

The EIA’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report reported that the number of barrels fell to 3.576million by the end Dec. 24. 

Investing.com analysts in the industry had forecast a drawdown to just 3.233 million barrels over the course of the week.

This latest drop in crude oil stockpiles follows back-to-back drops of 4.715 Million and 4.584 Million barrels over two weeks, which also exceeded our expectations.

U.S. gasoline inventories rose two weeks ago to their highest level in six months, as fuel demand temporarily slowed due to Omicron-related cutbacks.

However, inventories had fallen by 1.459 Million barrels in the last week, their highest level since late November. Analysts predicted a 31,000-barrel gasoline consumption for the week.

also fell by a substantial 1.726 million barrels last week, the most in three weeks, versus expectations for a drawdown of  59,000 barrels.