Concerns about rising output from the US, Libya and Nigeria continue to weigh on markets, however, and some analysts questioned whether the sharp rebound following the US government figures would be sustained.
Despite the stronger trend, analysts said the market remained under pressure after a build in petrol stocks in the USA, which partially offset the fall in crude inventories. API also reported gasoline supplies increased by 3.8 million barrels and distillate inventories decreased by 1.2 million barrels.
Brent crude has endured a volatile past few years, plummeting from more than $100 a barrel in 2014 to less than $30 last year.
Crude oil prices surged after the OPEC deal, but have come under pressure in recent weeks as US production surged, undermining OPEC-led efforts to balance supply with demand.
While U.S. oil inventories fell, the country's crude oil production C-OUT-T-EIA continued to rise, jumping above 9.3 million bpd last week, in what is now a more than 10 percent increase since its mid-2016 trough. Nigeria's 200,000 barrel-a-day Forcados oil pipeline is ready to export again after being shut down nearly continuously since February 2016.
Oil is edging higher after last week dropping to its lowest levels since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed in November to reduce output.
European Central Bank's Draghi cautiously upbeat on eurozone
Draghi responded that the stimulus had benefited the economy and ordinary people by helping boost employment. That is down from a peak of around 17% in 2010, but still higher than before the financial crisis.
Investors, who were previously skeptical of a move by OPEC and external producers such as Russian Federation to cut global crude supply by about 2%, have interpreted the drawdown in US stocks as a sign that the cartel's action is working.
Saudi Aramco has told Asian buyers it is curtailing supplies for June to meet its commitments for the output cut, one of the sources at a refiner in South Korea said.
Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih has already said Riyadh might agree to extending the cuts.
Saudi Aramco's decision to reduce oil supplies to Asia has seen prices rally again after recent declines. The volume of crude held in floating storage on tankers - often a key indicator of a supply surplus - is dropping like a brick, he said.
"The reason why the bears have been able to control this market is we haven't seen the hard evidence; there are a lot of doubting Thomases that say there's been no drawdown", said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.
The International Energy Agency has trimmed its forecasts for global oil demand growth this year by about 100,000 barrels a day to 1.3 million a day as a result of weaker consumption in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries and an abrupt slowdown in economic activity in India and Russian Federation, according to a report last month. "They managed their production by adding output from greenfields and lowering production at brownfields", OPEC said.
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