Crude-oil futures rose slightly Thursday after a pair of U.S. government reports showed the number of new layoffs declined last week and durable-goods orders rose more than predicted last month. Investors were also awaiting the Energy Information Administration to report last week's petroleum data later in the morning. Analysts surveyed by Platts expect U.S. crude inventories rose 1.8 million barrels. Also on investors' radar, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to keep production quotas unchanged, in line with expectations. In early North American electronic trading, crude for July delivery rose 15 cents, or 0.2%, to $63.60 a barrel. Oil had been on the rise in the previous three sessions. It ended Wednesday's trading at the highest level since Nov. 5. The number of new layoffs declined by 13,000 to 623,000 last week, while the number of people collecting state unemployment benefits rose by 110,000 to a record 6.79 million, the Labor Department reported. Meanwhile, orders for U.S.-made durable goods jumped in April, rising 1.9%. OPEC keeps steady OPEC, which accounts for about one third of the world's oil production, decided to leave production levels unchanged at Thursday's meeting in Vienna. "The Conference noted that the crude volumes entering the market are still in excess of actual demand and that, although crude inventories have fallen over the preceding two months, stocks remain high," the cartel said in a statement released after the meeting. The group had cut its production by 4.2 million barrels a day in several steps since September. The compliance rate rose to 83% in March, a surprise to industry analysts given OPEC's historical poor compliance record. But as oil prices rose in recent months, some OPEC members increased their production. The cartel's output rose in April for the first month in eight, according to the International Energy Agency and a survey by energy-information provider Platts. See related story. The EIA, the statistics arm of the Energy Department, is scheduled to release last week's petroleum data at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, a day late due to the Memorial Day holiday. Industry group American Petroleum Institute had reported last Wednesday after crude's floor trading closed that crude inventories fell by 2.8 million barrels. The EIA and the API use different criteria for gauging inventory levels. Rounding out the trading in energy futures, June-reformulated gasoline fell 0.3% to $1.886 a gallon, while June heating oil gained 0.7% to $1.572 a gallon. Natural gas for June delivery rose 0.9% to $3.57 per million British thermal units.

Source