OIL PRICE: NEAR $78 AGAIN

REUTERS - Oil prices edged up on Wednesday following a report of tightening U.S. fuel inventories amid an outage at Syncrude Canada oil sands facility in Alberta, which usually supplies the United States.

Prices were also pushed up by looming U.S. sanctions against Iran, which threaten to cut supplies to an already tight market despite pledges by producer cartel OPEC to raise output to make up for the disruptions.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 rose 46 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $74.60 a barrel at 0343 GMT (11.43 p.m. ET), compared with their last settlement. On Tuesday, WTI hit its highest since November 2014 at $75.27.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were changing hands at $78.10 per barrel, up 34 cents, or 0.4 percent, from their last close.

Trading activity is expected to be limited on Wednesday by the U.S. Independence Day holiday.

U.S. crude inventories fell by 4.5 million barrels to 416.9 million barrels in the week to June 29, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said on Tuesday. Gasoline and distillate stocks, which include diesel and heating oil, also fell, the API said.

"The draw in distillates was against expectations," said Sukrit Vijayakar, managing director of energy consultancy Trifecta.

The decline in fuel inventories was largely down to the outage at Syncrude Canada's 360,000 barrels per day (bpd) oil sands facility near Fort McMurray, Alberta. The outage is expected to last through July.

But brokerage Phillip Futures said the lower stocks come "as gasoline demand spikes on peak driving season in the northern hemisphere".

Outside North America, looming U.S. sanctions against major oil exporter Iran were the focus of attention.

The U.S. government has demanded that all countries stop buying Iran's oil from November.

To make up for potential shortfalls in supply from Iran and other disruptions including in Libya and Venezuela, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has agreed with Russia and other oil-producing non-OPEC members to raise output from July.

OPEC-member Iran, however, has warned it would not accept other producers reaping the benefits by taking its market share.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday said it was "unwise to imagine that some day all producer countries will be able to export their surplus oil and Iran will not be able to export its oil."

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Earlier: 

2018, July, 2, 12:25:00 OIL PRICE: ABOVE $78 REUTERS - Benchmark Brent crude oil LCOc1 fell $1.24 a barrel to a low of $77.99 before recovering to $78.40, down 83 cents, by 0735 GMT. U.S. light crude CLc1 was 50 cents lower at $73.65.

2018, July, 2, 12:20:00 РОССИЯ МОЖЕТ ДОБАВИТЬ 200 000 ПРАЙМ - Россия готова нарастить свою добычу нефти более чем на 200 тысяч баррелей в сутки, если это будет нужно для достижения общей цели ОПЕК+ по увеличению добычи в 1 миллион баррелей, сообщил журналистам министр энергетики РФ Александр Новак.

2018, July, 2, 12:15:00 KUWAIT'S OIL UP REUTERS - Kuwait will raise oil output by 85,000 barrels per day (bpd)starting on Sunday, part of an agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC producers to increase production by one million bpd, Energy Minister Bakhit al-Rashidi told a local newspaper on Saturday.

2018, July, 2, 12:10:00 LIBYA'S OIL DOWN REUTERS - Libya’s oil production has been reduced to 315,000 barrels per day (bpd) as storage tanks at Hariga and Zueitina ports fill up due to eastern officials blocking exports, two Libyan oil sources said

2018, June, 29, 10:55:00 OIL PRICE: NEAR $78 REUTERS - U.S. light crude oil CLc1 was 20 cents lower at $73.25 a barrel at 0730 GMT. On Thursday, the contract hit its highest since November 2014 at $74.03 per barrel. Brent crude LCOc1 was unchanged at $77.85 a barrel.

2018, June, 29, 10:50:00 OIL OUTPUT WILL UP PLATTS - "I think you're going to see a settling-down of the market -- people feeling comfortable that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States, we've got substantial production," Perry said, while acknowledging pipeline constraints in Texas that are holding back Permian Basin oil exports.

2018, June, 27, 11:20:00 OIL PRICE: NOT ABOVE $77 REUTERS - Brent crude futures LCOc1 had climbed 61 cents, or 0.8 percent, from their last close to $76.92 per barrel by 0650 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were at $70.88, up 35 cents, or 0.5 percent.