eia reports a weekly rise in us crude supplies of 59 million barrels oil futures climbed on wednesday to their highest intraday levels since early may finding support as a smallerthanexpected rise in us consumer prices helped weaken the dollar and opec supply cuts continued to point to tighter global crude supplies the rise in oil prices came even as the energy information administration reported a weekly gain in us commercial crude inventories of 59 million barrels oil prices have continued to rise on wednesday following us data showing consumer prices increased by a modest 02 in june and the rate of inflation slowed to the lowest level since 2021 the yearly rate of inflation decelerated to 3 from 4 in the prior month it looks like oil traders are focusing more on easing inflation pressures meaning that the federal reserve may not need to raise interest rates much further meaning that the currently robust economic conditions may be able to continue for a while colin cieszynski chief market strategist at sia wealth management told marketwatch this has helped to boost demand expectations while offshore supply from saudi arabia and russia is still being held back he said a weaker us dollar can provide support for dollardenominated prices of oil in wednesday dealings the ice us dollar index was down 11 at 10060 meanwhile the organization of the petroleum exporting countries and their allies together known as opec recently agreed to extend their oilproduction cuts through 2024 and saudi arabia voluntarily agreed to extend its voluntary production cut through august in a monthly report released tuesday the energy information administration said it expects global oil supplies to decline over the next five quarters because of those reductions in output the market is still dealing with a supply cut from saudi arabia along with the refilling of the us strategic petroleum reserve said tariq zahir managing member at tyche capital advisors the us energy department said last friday that it plans to buy about 6 million barrels of oil for the nations oil reserve following the historic drawdown of 180 million barrels announced by the biden administration in the spring of 2022 in addition theres been a quiet start to the atlantic hurricane season which began on june 1 but that could change at a moments notice said zahir the us consumerprice index came in weaker than expected and bond yields have also weakened allowing risk assets catch a bid he told marketwatch the cpi data also caused weakness in the dollar which has provided strength in the energy complex gains for oil prices came even as the eia on wednesday reported that us commercial crude inventories climbed by 59 million barrels for the week ending july 7 on average analysts polled by sp global commodity insights expected the report to show a decline of 1 million barrels the american petroleum institute a trade group had reported late tuesday that domestic crude supplies rose by 3 million barrels last week according to sources citing the data the eia inventory data were a surprise showing an increase in crude supplies when a decline was expected said zahir however if we see any further weakness in crude we would use this as a buying opportunity he said supply cuts weaker us dollar hurricane season  all of these factors  will keep a bid to crude oil in the days and weeks ahead the eia report showed weekly inventories of gasoline were generally unchanged last week while distillate supplies increased by 48 million barrels analysts had forecast a weekly fall of 11 million barrels for gasoline and an increase of 150000 barrels for distillates crude stocks at the cushing okla nymex delivery hub fell by 16 million barrels for the week the eia said while stocks in the spr edged down by 400000 barrels this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal