08:59 AM EDT, 09/24/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Oil rose for a second day early on Wednesday, buoyed by a drop in U.S. inventories last week and supply shortfalls. West Texas Intermediate crude oil for November delivery was last seen up $0.72 to US$64.13 per barrel, while November Brent oil was up $0.74 to US$68.37.

The rise comes as a report showed U.S. oil inventories fell last week, with the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday saying inventories fell by 3.2-million barrels. While official inventory data coming later this morning from the Energy Information Administration is awaited, the drop shows demand remains solid even as OPEC+ completed the return of 2.2-million barrels per day of production to market on Sept.1.

Still, Ukraine attacks on Russian refineries and oil infrastructure are cutting into supply from the No.2 exporter, while a dispute between Iraq and its Kurdistan region is keeping production from there limited, even as Chinese buying continues to support pricing.

"Year-to-date, global oil inventories have risen near 187mmbbls with Chinese crude stocks accounting for 105mmbbls as the nation looks to enhance energy security, blunting the impact to OECD inventories," Tudor, Pickering, Holt analyst Matt Portillo noted.

An influx of money into the market is also supporting prices as investors continue to chase risk outside of equity markets that are trading at record highs.

"It is noteworthy that inflows of capital into the oil market have been rising. The latest data, covering the week ending September 16, show that just over $30 billion has been committed by financial investors to the five major oil futures and options contracts, calculated by multiplying each contract's NSL by its end-of-period price. This marks an $8 billion increase in four weeks and nearly triple the year's low of $11 billion at the end of April," PVM Oil Associates noted.