RIYADH: Brent crude climbed toward $72 a barrel on Wednesday following a two-day rally that added about 8 percent to the international benchmark, as EIA data showed US fuel demand at the highest level since before the pandemic. Brent rose 0.5 percent to $71.57 a barrel at 6:39 p.m. Riyadh time. WTI, the US benchmark, was 0.1 percent higher at $67.66. The four-week average for US total product supplied, a proxy for fuel demand, soared to nearly 21 million barrels per day, its highest since March 2020, when governments first began to widely impose pandemic-related restrictions, US Energy Information Administration data showed today. US commercial crude oil inventories in the week ended Aug. 20 decreased by 3 million barrels from the previous week, the EIA data showed. At 432.6 million barrels, US crude oil inventories are about 6 percent below the five-year average for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.2 million barrels last week and are about 3 percent below the five-year average for this time of year. Russian oil output has dropped so far in August after a fire at Gazprom’s West Siberian processing plant forced the company to cap production in the area. The unplanned drop comes after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, agreed to start a new round of crude production hikes from August. The alliance will add 400,000 barrels a day to the market each month until all its halted production comes back online. OPEC’s crude exports over the first half of August rose by about 500,000 barrels a day compared with the July average, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE leading the gains, according to data published today by Vortexa. Mexico’s state oil firm said it expected to resume production by Aug. 30. Denmark and Costa Rica are trying to forge an alliance of countries willing to fix a date to phase out oil and gas production and to stop giving permits for new exploration, government ministers said, and documents showed. An oil spill caused by leakage from a power plant inside one of Syria’s oil refineries is spreading along the coast of the Mediterranean country, Syria’s state news agency said. The spill reached the coastal town of Jableh in Syria about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the refinery in the town of Baniyas, satellite photos showed Wednesday. On the demand side, India’s monsoon season has hindered the recovery in diesel use with flooding disrupting agricultural activities. Weekly data from the American Petroleum Institute showed crude inventories fell 1.6 million barrels for the week ended Aug. 20, while gasoline stockpiles fell 1 million barrels.