02:42 PM EDT, 09/24/2025 (MT Newswires) -- West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil rose for a second day on Wednesday, buoyed by a drop in U.S. inventories last week and supply shortfalls.

(WTI) crude oil for November delivery closed up US$1.58 to settle at US$64.99 per barrel, the highest since Sept.2, while November Brent oil was last seen up $1.58 to US$69.21.

The rise comes as a report showed U.S. oil inventories fell last week, with the Energy Information Administration reported U.S. commercial crude oil inventories fell by 0.6-million barrels last week, while the consensus estimate among analysts polled by Reuters expected a rise of 235,000 barrels. 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.