WTI and Brent Crude Settlements End Higher on Wednesday

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Crude oil futures rebounded on Wednesday to post gains following the Federal Reserve’s announcement to raise interest rates, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.

April West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.14, or 2.4%, to settle at $48.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

On the London ICE Futures Exchange, May Brent crude, the global benchmark, gained 89 cents, or 1.8%, to end trading at $51.81 a barrel.

WTI climbed higher with the Federal Reserve’s decision toraise its benchmark short-term interest rate by a quarter-point and signaled two more rate hikes this year.

Early Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that domestic crude oil supplies fell 200,000 barrels from a record level to total 528.2 million barrels for the week ending March 10.

The weekly fall was smaller than the decline of 531,000 barrels reported by the American Petroleum Institute while analysts polled by S&P Global Platts forecasted a jump of 3.5 million barrels.

Back on the New York Mercantile Exchange, April natural gas tacked on 4.3 cents, or 1.5%, to settle at $2.981 per million British thermal units.

In a monthly report issued on Wednesday, the International Energy Agency indicated output from OPEC rose by 170,000 barrels in February to 32 million barrels a day.