Oil up on big US crude storage draw, Middle East tension

NEW YORK: Oil prices climbed about 2% to a two-week high on Wednesday on a bigger-than-expected US storage draw and hitting session highs after Iran called for an oil embargo on Israel.

Brent futures rose $1.92, or 2.1%, to $91.82 a barrel by 1:24 p.m. EDT (1724 GMT). US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose $2.09, or 2.4%, to $88.75. At their session highs, both benchmarks were up more than $3 a barrel.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said energy firms pulled 4.5 million barrels of crude from stockpiles during the week ended Oct. 13.

That was much higher than the 0.3 million barrel draw analysts forecast in a Reuters poll.