New figures showing fall of 5.2 million barrels in US reserves help counter modest losses on Tuesday International oil price benchmark Brent crude bucked earlier modest losses on Tuesday afternoon and has risen above $51 this morning as traders continue to bet against Brexit. Analysts have warned of volatility for markets, including oil futures, ahead of tomorrow's EU referendum, which could have implications for demand if a vote to Leave hits growth in the UK, Europe and elsewhere, along with an expected surge for the dollar in response. So far, traders have been calm and a boost for the Remain camp in polling over the weekend has consolidated confidence that the vote will be to stay. Marginal losses in early Tuesday trading were little more than a pull back after two days of advances, with Brent nudging 0.1 per cent lower. Its recovery was helped in part by a report on US crude oil reserves that had positive implications for supply. The American Petroleum Institute (API) revealed a draw of 5.2 million barrels on US reserves, Reuters reports, way ahead of analyst expectations and suggesting that demand is still outstripping supply after recent outages. Official data from the Energy Information Administration, which can often be at variance with the API numbers, is published this afternoon. Should the UK vote to remain in the EU, the supply balance will come back into focus. But the picture is still "hazy", the Wall Street Journal says. Prices may struggle if output disruptions in Canada and Nigeria are quickly resolved and the likes of Saudi Arabia and Iran continue a turf war. "It would appear that the strong spring price advance has run its course and that fresh highs are a slim possibility even when extending a view out across the rest of the summer," Jim Ritterbusch, the president of energy-advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates, said in a note. Oil price: $80 a barrel is on its way, says analyst 21 June A high-profile analyst has told clients to "prepare for oil at $80 a barrel", Bloomberg reports. In a note to customers, a team led by J Marshall Adkins at US financial service company Raymond James & Associates said ongoing production disruptions and rising demand will keep the market in supply deficit. This will drive a strong rally that will see oil "average about $30 [per] barrel higher" than current estimates, they add. Analysts and brokers have consistently forecast an average of around $50 a barrel throughout next year, indicating very little movement from current levels. Raymond James's call singles out in particular the "fracklog" in US shale, referring to wells where drilling has been put on hiatus because of low prices. Many believe these wells could be restarted quickly if oil remains at current levels, returning the market to oversupply. But Adkins and his colleagues argue "bottlenecks that include a limited available pool of labour and equipment" will discourage this. They also cite "organic declines in China, Columbia, Angola, and Mexico" as reducing supply outside of the US. On the other side of the fence, the Financial Times reports that shale producers Continental Resources, EOG Resources and Oasis Petroleum have already started to complete some of their unfinished wells. It adds that the likes of Citigroup and oil consultancies Wood Mackenzie and Rystad Energy believe this will add to supplies by 250,000 to one million barrels a day by the end of this year. This will not be sufficient to prevent supply slowly declining following a reduction in investment over the past two years, it continues, but it could be enough to "delay the rebalancing of the global oil market, pushing it further back into 2017". Oil is taking something of a breather today after a two-day rally and a three per cent advance on Monday. International benchmark Brent crude remains above the important $50 a barrel mark.

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