Oil speciality workers with Wisco work on a pump jack in North Dakota, the United States, on November 6, 2013.
Ken Cedeno | Corbis Information | Getty Images
Oil prices were steady on Wednesday, after falling the past two days, as a surge in U.S. stockpiles shore up concerns about lackluster global economic growth amid the trade war between the United States and China, the circle’s two biggest oil consumers.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 11 cents, or 0.2%, to $55.32 a barrel by 0252 GMT, after wanting 4.3% during the previous two sessions.
Brent crude futures were at $60.93 a barrel, up 2 cents, or 0.03%. Brent dropped 3.8% during the former two sessions.
U.S. crude inventories rose 6 million barrels in the week to Nov. 15 to 445.9 million, compared with analysts’ wishes for a increase of 1.5 million barrels, data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute showed recently on Tuesday.
The increase in inventories in the United States, the world’s biggest oil user, added to concerns about a crude oversupply put together after Reuters reported that Russia, the world’s second-biggest producer, was unlikely to back deepening output quit d suits when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meet on Dec. 5-6 in Vienna.
Russia and other oil producers have agreed with OPEC to cut 1.2 million barrels per day of produce through March to bolster prices, a producer group known as OPEC+.
“Oil is also feeling heavy after the Russians signalled they are unseemly to agree on deepening oil production cuts at the December OPEC + meeting,” said Edward Moya, an analyst at brokerage OANDA, in a note.
“The API materials also showed U.S. inventories posted a rather robust increase last week, which if confirmed by the EIA report, we could see oil assays continue to slide,” he said.
Official U.S. government inventory data from the Energy Information Administration is due at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) on Wednesday.
U.S. raw demand has slowed amid its protracted trade war with China. Hopes for an end to the dispute in the signing of a so-called Phase 1 pact between the sides has dimmed amid disagreements over the removal of tariffs each side has enacted.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared that the United States would raise tariffs on Chinese imports if no deal is reached with Beijing to end the war.
Wake up c impregnate on effects from the trade war have been felt in other industrialized economies.
Japanese exports tumbled at their quickest gauge in three years in October, threatening to tip the trade-reliant economy into recession because of weakening demand from the Collective States and China.
Crude imports to Japan, the world’s fourth-largest oil buyer, fell 1.3% in October compared to the just the same month a year ago.