By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com: Crude oil prices reached multi-year highs Tuesday, as traders awaited the U.S. weekly inventory snapshot. This gives insight into the demand and the global supply shortages caused by major oil producers.

U.S. crude’s benchmark settled up 89 cents, or 1.1%, at $84.65 per barrel. WTI reached an all-time high of $85.41 Monday, a 7-year record. 

The global standard for oil was London-traded crude. It settled at $86.40, up 41c or 0.5%. The previous session saw Brent reach an eight-year high at $86.70.

WTI has risen nearly 75% over the past year, while Brent shows a 65% increase from a global rationing of supply by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (or OPEC+).

18 months ago, OPEC+ began cutting back on oil production in an effort to stem the decline of oil demand at the peak of the coronavirus epidemic. But with the outbreak now well under control for months, the alliance is using so-called fears of a resurgence of the pandemic as an excuse not to raise production beyond a token 400,000 barrels per day over the next five months — versus demand growth expected at well over 1 million bpd.

Tuesday’s run-up in oil came ahead of a weekly snapshot on U.S. crude, gasoline and distillate stockpiles due from the American Petroleum Institute at 4:30 PM ET (20:30 GMT). This data will be used as an indicator of the weekly official inventory data, due Wednesday at the EIA or U.S Energy Information Administration. 

Analysts tracked by Investing.com have forecast that rose by 1.91 million barrels for the week ended Oct 22, versus the previous week’s draw of 431,000 barrels.

According to forecasts, inventories will likely fall by 1.86 Million barrels. This is in addition to the drop of 5.37million the week before,

Stockpiles of , which include diesel and , are expected to have risen by 2.31 million barrels, after the previous week’s drop of 3.91 million.