Global benchmark Brent crude was up 68 cents at $49.41 a barrel by 1327 GMT.
The producer group and other major suppliers including Russian Federation agreed past year to cut their collective production by about 1.8 million barrels a day for the first half of 2017 in an effort to reduce bloated global stockpiles and re-balance the market.
Stephen Brennock, an analyst at London broker PVM, said in a daily emailed newsletter that API metrics could be supportive of a sentiment of a balancing market.
"U.S. oil and gas companies have already stepped up activities in 2017 as they start to increase their spending amid a recovery in oil prices", OPEC's Vienna-based research department said in the report.
Crude futures eked out more gains in Asia on Thursday as investors are interpreting the latest hefty decline in US crude inventories to be a harbinger of future demand. At 522.5 million barrels, crude stocks were the lowest since February.
WTI has fallen about 12.6% so far this year as talk of OPEC extending its production cut through the end of the year has failed to provide support.
Oil prices pared gains on Thursday after the release of the report to trade at less than $51 a barrel LCOc1 , below the $60 level that top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia would like to see.
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"This means OPEC must do more than just rolling over the production cut deals in order to maintain this price floor", said Mr. Gao.
The larger-than-expected drop came alongside weaker imports, which averaged over 7.6m barrels per day last week, down by 644,000 barrels per day from the previous week.
State-owned Saudi Aramco will reportedly reduce oil supplies to Asian customers by about seven million barrels in June, as part of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' agreement to reduce production.
Gasoline stocks fell by 150,000 barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 538,000 barrel-drop.
Consequently, the EIA has revised the Brent and WTI prices down for 2017, to $52.6 and $50.68 per barrel respectively.
While traders remain mostly pessimistic about oil prices, some are arguing the market is well on its way toward balance.
OPEC's production last month fell by 18,000 barrels per day, according to secondary sources cited in the report, to 31.73 million barrels per day. Even as USA oil production increased yet again and more oil was released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, old supplies fell.
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