Forexpros — Crude oil futures advanced on Tuesday, recouping some of the previous day’s losses amid easing concerns over a slowdown in demand from the U.S. and China, while a broadly weaker U.S. dollar also lent support.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in September traded at USD97.07 a barrel during European morning trade, gaining 0.77%.
It earlier rose as much as 0.93% to trade at a daily high of USD97.24 a barrel.
Crude oil prices dropped nearly 1.4% on Monday as a lack of progress over raising the U.S. debt ceiling and lingering concerns over the euro zone’s debt crisis prompted investors to shun riskier assets.
Meanwhile, a report from China’s National Development and Reform Commission released earlier showed that Chinese fuel consumption rose 7.2% in the six months to June.
Markets were awaiting fresh information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products.
The American Petroleum Institute will release its inventories report later in the day, while Wednesday’s government report could show stockpiles declined by 1.5 million barrels last week, while gasoline stockpiles were projected to fall 0.1 million barrels.
U.S. oil supplies have declined in each of the past six weeks, falling nearly 5% since the end of May amid U.S. peak gasoline demand and the start of the Atlantic hurricane season.
The U.S. and China are the world’s two largest oil consuming nations.
Weakness in the dollar had also contributed to oil’s strength. The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of six other major currencies was down 0.31% to trade at a three-day low of 75.44.
Dollar-denominated oil futures contracts tend to rise when the dollar falls, as this makes oil cheaper for buyers in other currencies.
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange, Brent oil futures for September delivery edged 0.45% higher to trade at USD116.81 a barrel, up USD19.74 on its U.S. counterpart.
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