The gap between West Texas Intermediate and Brent narrowed to the least in almost two months as U.S. crude stockpiles were forecast to fall and Ukraine said peace talks with Russia yielded progress.

Futures rose as much as 0.5 percent in New York and Brent was steady in London. U.S. crude stockpiles probably shrank by 1.5 million barrels in the week ended June 6, according to a Bloomberg News survey before data from the Energy Information Administration tomorrow. Two days of talks with Russia led to an agreement to implement parts of President Petro Poroshenko’s peace plan, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“U.S. oil stocks are now likely to fall every week until mid-August,” Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB AB in Oslo, said by e-mail. “No one should be surprised that the WTI-Brent spread is tightening up.”

WTI for July delivery gained as much as 48 cents to $104.89 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $104.73 at 12:47 p.m. London time. The contract climbed $1.75 to $104.41 yesterday, the highest close since March 3. The volume of all futures traded was about 46 percent above the 100-day average for the time of day. Prices have increased 6.5 percent this year.

Brent for July settlement was 18 cents higher at $110.17 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark crude’s premium dropped to as little as $5.15 to WTI on ICE, the least since April 15. It was at $5.49 a barrel at 12:47 p.m.

The price of gold is rising in price after consolidation in the previous session amid evidence the U.S. wholesale inventories.

The volume of wholesale inventories in the United States has grown significantly in April, exceeding forecasts of experts in this and increase the likelihood of accelerating economic growth in the second quarter.

Ministry of Commerce announced that wholesale inventories rose 1.1 percent after the same growth in March. Many economists had expected an increase of this index by 0.6 percent.

It is worth noting that inventories are a key component of gross domestic product changes. Component that goes into the calculation of GDP - wholesale inventories excluding automobiles - increased by 1.1 percent.

Sharp slowdown in growth stocks in enterprises put pressure on economic growth in the first quarter. Recall that the economy contracted by 1.0 per cent per annum in the period from January to March (stocks reduced GDP by 1.6 percentage points). Growth in this quarter is forecast to accelerate to 3.0 percent, but strong gains in wholesale inventories in April could push some economists to raise their estimates of GDP.

Also, the data showed sales at wholesalers rose 1.3 percent in April after rising 1.6 percent the previous month. With recent changes in the ratio of inventories to sales was 1.18 months in April, unchanged compared with March.

The cost of the August gold futures on the COMEX today rose to $ 1263.8 per ounce.

Gold $1,252.40 -0.20 -0.02%

ICE Brent Crude Oil $109.96 +1.35 +1.24%

NYMEX Crude Oil $104.55 +1.73 +1.68%