Oil prices maintained gains on Wednesday following a 3% rise a day
earlier driven by Brazilian and Libyan supply worries, a U.S.
pipeline outage and a general rally in riskier assets amid expectations for more
economic stimulus measures.
U.S. crude was up 0.25% to $48.02 a barrel, while Brent futures hit $50.69 a barrel, up 0.29%.
WTI futures hit their highest level since October 13 during Tuesday's session after the U.S. Colonial Pipeline suspended operations due to flooding, a pause that came on top of a strike at Brazil's state oil producer Petrobras and the closure of the Libyan oil export terminal.
The Petrobras strike has hampered daily oil output, slowing it by nearly 25% in the world's ninth biggest oil producer.
In other news, activity in China's services sector grew at its fastest pace in three months in October thanks to stronger new business, a private survey showed on Wednesday, easing some worries over economic weakness as manufacturing slows.
However, it was still unclear if the services data would be sufficient to strengthen demand in the world's top consumer of commodities.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration was to issue supply data later in the day, which could push prices lower amid lingering worries over a global oversupply.
On Tuesday the American Petroleum Institute said that crude stocks rose by an estimated 2.8 million barrels last week.
