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By Bloomberg

Oil gained for the second time in three days amid speculation the U.S. supply glut will ease as shale producers cut back.

Futures rose as much as 0.6 percent in New York. Output from prolific U.S. tight-rock formations will decline through July to the lowest level since January, the Energy Information Administration reported Monday. Crude stockpiles in the country, the world’s biggest oil consumer, probably dropped for a sixth week as refiners prepared to meet increased fuel demand in the summer, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Oil’s recovery from a six-year low has stumbled near $60 a barrel amid speculation the price advance since March will spur production. With the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries maintaining its quota, U.S. shale output, led by companies including EOG Resources Inc., has come under pressure to rebalance the global market.

“We’re now in the midst of what we hope will be a good driving season and the EIA numbers tend to be pointing toward that,” David Lennox, a resource analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney, said by phone. “OPEC and U.S. production have pushed the price to where it is. The world is still awash with oil.”

West Texas Intermediate for July delivery climbed as much as 34 cents to $58.48 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $58.38 at 12:01 p.m. Singapore time. The contract lost 99 cents to $58.14 on Monday. The volume of all futures traded was about 76 percent below the 100-day average. Prices are up 9.6 percent this year.

U.S. Supply

Brent for July settlement rose as much as 31 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $63 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. It slid 62 cents to $62.69 on Monday. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of $4.47 to WTI.

Production from shale formations such as North Dakota’s Bakken and the Eagle Ford in Texas will fall by 1.3 percent to 5.58 million barrels a day in June, the EIA said in its monthly Drilling Productivity Report. Output will decrease to 5.49 million a day in July, predicted the Energy Department’s statistical arm.

Drillers seeking oil in the U.S. have reduced the number of active machines by 59 percent to 642 in the past six months, according to Baker Hughes Inc. That’s the fewest since August 2010, data from the oilfield-services company showed.

U.S. crude inventories probably shrank by 1.45 million barrels in the week ended June 5, according to the median estimate in the Bloomberg survey of eight analysts before a separate EIA report Wednesday. Stockpiles were at 477.4 million through May 29, almost 100 million above the five-year average for this time of the year.

OPEC agreed at a June 5 meeting to keep its output quota at 30 million barrels a day as it sought to defend market share against higher-cost producers. The 12-member group, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, has pumped above that target each month in the past year, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.