Oil rallies after U.S. crude inventory draw

Hungarian oil and gas group MOL's main Duna (Danube) refinery is seen in Szazhalombatta, 20km (12miles) south of Budapest, in this January 8, 2007 file photo.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices jumped on Wednesday after U.S. government data showed a draw in crude inventories as refiners ramped up runs to keep up with summer gasoline demand in the world's top consumer.

Global benchmark London Brent crude LCOc1 rose $1.24 to $76.32 a barrel after falling in earlier activity. U.S. crude CLc1 surged $2.32 -- over 3 percent -- to settle at $75.88 a barrel before rising to $76.24 later in electronic trade.

Crude stocks in the world's top consumer fell 1.1 million barrels last week, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as refiners increased runs to help meet summer gasoline demand.

Inventories of crude at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point of the New York Mercantile Exchange oil contract fell by 1.4 million barrels, adding to the bullish sentiment.

"The market is generally concerned about that draw in Cushing. Regardless of the supplies we see elsewhere in the United States, we are still seeing draws at Cushing," said Stephen Schork, president of The Schork Report.

U.S. gasoline stocks rose 800,000 barrels, above analyst forecasts, as refinery use increased by 0.7 percentage point.

The gains came after electronic trading of energy futures in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Globex platform was shut for about an hour due to a technical problem.

Support also came from news of a fire at Exxon Mobil's Fawley 326,000 barrel per day UK refinery, which supplies almost a sixth of UK products.

The oil major said the fire was out and there was no immediate impact on oil product supplies to customers, but analysts said a prolonged outage hit Atlantic Basin supplies at the height of U.S. gasoline season.

Schork said if there is no quick restart: "Exxon Mobil is going to be forced to go to the import market and that could draw gasoline cargoes away from the United States."

Crude prices had dipped earlier, due in part to expectations that crude supplies from OPEC were rising.

Oil consultant Petrologistics, which tracks tanker shipments, said overall OPEC output was set to rise 300,000 barrels per day to 30.7 million bpd this month, as producers take advantage of near record crude oil prices.

OPEC's second-biggest producer, Iran, said on Tuesday the exporter group, which agreed to cut output last year as prices were sliding, would ramp up output if needed.

Production from giant non-OPEC producer Russia will remain steady until 2020, its Economy Ministry said on Tuesday, confirming the outlook by the International Energy Agency.

The ministry said in its long-term economic outlook that it expected production from Russia, the world's second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, to level off at 10.6 million barrels per day between 2015 and 2020.

(Additional reporting by Neil Chatterjee in Singapore, Janet McBride and Santosh Menon in London)