U. S. crude oil futures struck a new seven-month intraday high in post-settlement trading on Tuesday after the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory data showed a much larger-than-expected crude stock drawdown last week.

Crude and Nat gas rose by 2.82 percent and 1.21 percent respectively on NYMEX.

U. S. crude oil inventories dropped slightly last week due to rising refinery usage, an expanded Reuters poll ahead of weekly inventory reports showed on Tuesday.

The American Petroleum Institute in its inventory report issued said crude stocks fell last week 6.0 million barrels to 357.9 million barrels as imports dropped 510,00 barrels per day to 8.52 million bpd.

Crude oil inventory report today is likely to be bullish as we expect to see a draw in gasoline and crude stocks which may support crude oil prices, EIA short energy report is also seen positive for crude oil prices. We expect the bullish trend to continue in crude oil. Natural Gas, despite bullish trend in crude, edged lower but we remain bullish on it fundamentally.