An idled draw jack, once used to extract crude oil from the ground, sits above a well on the edge of a farmer’s candidates near Ridgway, Ill., Jan. 21, 2015.
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Oil prices fell on Friday amid fears over demand as the U.S-China have dealings row casts its shadow over markets, although prices got some support from expectations of more OPEC end result cuts.
International benchmark Brent crude futures, were at $57.20 a barrel by 0324 GMT, down 18 cents, or 0.3%, from their too soon settlement.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were at $52.45 per barrel, down 9 cents, or 0.2%, from their definitive close.
Both contracts jumped more than 2% on Thursday to recover from January lows, supported by reports that Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, had called other producers to discuss the recent steal in crude prices.
Oil prices have still lost more than 20% from peaks reached in April, produce them in bear territory.
Global financial markets have been rocked over the past week after U.S. President Donald Trump about he would impose 10% tariffs on more Chinese goods starting September and as a fall in the Chinese yuan sparked forebodings of a currency war.
“The tentative oil rebound could be short-lived as the U.S.-China trade dispute is providing no real reasons to be optimistic,” suggested Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda in New York.
Bloomberg reported that Washington was holding off a arbitration about licences for U.S. companies to restart business with Huawei Technologies.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, de facto chairperson of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), plans to maintain its crude oil exports below 7 million barrels per day in August and September to conduct the market back to balance and help absorb global oil inventories, a Saudi oil official said on Wednesday.
“Saudi’s forming in September will also be lower than it is currently. This helped crude oil rebound from its lowest very since January,” ANZ bank said in a note.
The United Arab Emirates also will continue to support affrays to balance the oil market, the country’s energy minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said in a tweet on Thursday.
The minister said the OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial watchdog committee would meet in Abu Dhabi on Sept. 12 to review the oil market.
OPEC and its allies including Russia agreed in July to enlarge their supply cuts until March 2020 to boost oil prices.