Oil prices edge up on Thursday, clawing back some ground after losses in the previous session.
Traders said the market was range-bound as falling crude inventories provided price support while high output was capping gains.
Brent crude futures, LCOc1 the international benchmark for oil prices, were at $50.43 per barrel at 0101 GMT, up 16 cents, or 0.3 per cent, from their last close.
US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were at $46.88 a barrel, up 10 cents, or 0.2 per cent.
The slight gains followed a more than 1.0 per cent fall in the previous session.
Data published late on Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that commercial US crude oil stocks C-STK-T-EIA have fallen by almost 13 per cent from their peaks in March to 466.5 million barrels, well below this time last year.
Some traders said that the soaring US output is eroding efforts by the OPEC which, together with non-OPEC producers like Russia, has pledged to restrict output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) between January this year and March 2018 to tighten the market and prop up prices.
Brent prices are down by almost 12 per cent since the start of the cuts in January.
