West Texas Intermediate oil was up 70 cents, or 1.74%, at $42.37 a barrel, having dropped 0.8% in the previous session.
Brent crude was up 69 cents, or 1.55%, at $45.18 a barrel after falling around 1% on Tuesday.
The American Petroleum Institute said on Tuesday that crude stocks fell by 4 million barrels last week, more than analysts’ expectations of draw of 2.9 million barrels. Official government data is due later on Wednesday.
The “fall in U.S. API crude inventories … the third sizeable weekly fall in a row, has supported prices today,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA.
Still, growing uncertainty over a stalemate in Washington in talks for a stimulus package to support recovery from the deepest impact of the pandemic may weigh on prices looking ahead.
In India, demand for fuel in July dropped 10.8% from a year earlier, the fifth month of year-on-year declines, government data showed on Tuesday as a rise in coronavirus cases and floods in many parts of the country restricted economic activity.