Oil prices rise as U.S. crudes stocks fall

By Himanshu Ojha

LONDON (Reuters) - Crude oil prices bounced back on Wednesday from steep falls in the previous session as government data showed that U.S. crude stocks fell last week for the third straight week.

U.S. crude inventories fell by 2.67 million barrels to 482.17 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Industry group, the American Petroleum Institute (API), had forecast on Tuesday a fall of 5.2 million barrels. [EIA/S] [API/S]

Stocks in the key delivery point of Cushing, Oklahoma fell by 241,000 barrels to 60.44 million barrels, the EIA said.

Brent futures rose 72 cents to $64.74 a barrel by 1445 GMT, after touching $65.02 earlier in the session. U.S. crude prices rose 41 cents to $58.40 a barrel, easing back from an intraday high of $58.90.

On Tuesday oil fell over 3 percent on a dollar rally and concerns of a building glut, which Goldman Sachs said would lead to a return towards 2015 lows.

"The market came under a lot of pressure yesterday and it's not unusual to see a bit of a correction the day after," said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist with Netherlands-based ABN Amro.

Prices also drew support from strong economic data from Asia. Japan's economy, the world's third largest, expanded at an annualised rate of 2.4 percent in the first three months of this year.

"Japan is one of the major importers of crude oil and growth in this region would definitely be favourable for crude demand," Singapore-based brokerage Phillip Futures said.

Unrest continued in Yemen, where Saudi-led forces intensified a bombing campaign against Iranian-allied Houthi rebels. While Yemen is a marginal producer of oil, it lies close to major shipping routes and shares a border with Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.

The United Nations will sponsor Yemeni political talks in Geneva on May 28, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement released on Wednesday.

But Yemeni Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla said Yemen's exiled government might not attend because it had not been officially notified.

"We didn't get an official invitation. It's very short notice. If it happens, it shouldn't be on May 28," he said by telephone.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by William Hardy and David Evans)