Oil rebounded after closing at the lowest level in two months as investors weighed US data that showed crude stockpiles slid and fuel inventories unexpectedly grew.
Futures gained as much as 1.5 per cent in New York, paring Wednesday’s 4.4 per cent slump.
US supplies fell an eighth week, the longest losing streak since June 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Gasoline inventories rose further above their five-year average, while analysts had forecast a decline.
Demand for the fuel fell during the week that included the Independence Day holiday - usually a peak consumption period - as output increased.
Oil has traded between $44 and $51 a barrel since early June after almost doubling from a 12-year low in February amid a spate of supply disruptions and falling US output.
The fuel surplus means American refiners may process less oil even as crude supplies remain more than 100 million barrels above the five-year average for this time of the year.”
Every time we have seen these big pullbacks, there is quite a lot of strong buying around that $44, $45 level,” Angus Nicholson, a markets analyst in Melbourne at IG, said by phone.
“There are definitely active participants in the market who are very happy to be picking up oil at that price.”
US SuppliesWest Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery rose as much as 67 cents to $45.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $45.33 at 3:08 pm Tokyo time.
Bloomberg
