Oil prices rose Thursday as markets braced for potentially hectic trading after an extremely bullish U.S. inventory forecast from industry body the American Petroleum Institute late Wednesday. The November contract for the crude oil benchmark Brent was up 1.79% at $48.84 while its U.S. counterpart West Texas Intermediate was up 2% at $46.40 for October deliveries. The API forecasts a hefty 12.1 million barrels decline in U.S. crude stocks for last week and if this figure is emulated in the official data, set to be released Thursday by the Energy Information Administration, market participants forecast prices will rise accordingly. “This is a constructive number for oil and one if repeated by the EIA will be enough for another pop in oil prices,” said Dominick Chirichella from the New York-based Energy Management Institute in a note. Paris-based Société Générale SCGLY 0.07 % said in a note that the long process […]