Oil price increases and Brent is below $ 50 before the OPEC meeting

​               Oil prices incresed today ahead of a major meeting of major oil producing countries next week, but Brent remained below the $ 50 a barrel he briefly broke for the first time in six weeks during the previous session. At 06:58 GMT, Brent crude futures were up 10 cents, or 0.2 percent, at $ 49.40 a barrel. US crude was up 7 cents, or 0.2 percent, at $ 46.99 a barrel, crude stocks hit the highest level since early June in volatile trade during the previous session, led by data showing a big drop in US crude and fuel inventories last week. "The impact of strong inventory declines announced earlier this week is still in the market," ANZ Bank said. Rick Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said the inventory decline could continue in the near term but overall inventory levels this year would probably remain higher than in 2016. US oil inventories of about 490 million barrels remain well above the 5 year average, while US production increased about 12 percent since the mid of 2016 to 9.4 million barrel per day.