Oil recovers, rising for first time in three days

Tokyo — Oil prices climbed for the first time in three days on Wednesday, but rising supply and fear over the outlook for demand amid the US-China trade war kept pressure on the market.

Brent crude futures had gained 47c, or 0.6%, to $76.38 a barrel by 4.41am GMT. They fell 1.8% on Tuesday, at one point touching their lowest since Aug. 24 at$75.09 a barrel.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures advanced 16c, or 0.2%, to $66.34 a barrel on Wednesday. They dropped 1.3% the day before, after hitting their weakest since Aug. 17 at $65.33 a barrel.

Both crude benchmarks have fallen about $10 a barrel from four-year highs reached in the first week of October, and are on track to post their worst monthly performance since July 2016.

“Everyone thought we were going to go into the $90s, but now we are heading for the $60s,” said Tony Nunan, oil risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo, referring to Brent prices.

Oil has been caught in the global financial market slump in October, with equities under pressure from the trade scrap between the world’s two largest economies. US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he thinks there will be “a great deal” with China on trade but warned that he has billions of dollars worth of new tariffs ready to go if a deal is not possible.

Trump said he would like to make a deal now but that China was not ready. He did not elaborate.

The US has already imposed tariffs on $250bn worth of Chinese goods, and China has responded with retaliatory duties on $110bn worth of US goods.

In a bearish signal, the American Petroleum Institute reported US crude inventories rose 5.7-million barrels last week, more than analyst forecasts for a 4.1-million-barrel build.

Investors will look to official government data on US inventories due on Wednesday.

Oil production from Russia, the US and Saudi Arabia reached 33-million barrels a day for the first time in September, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

That is an increase of 10-million barrels a day since the start of the decade and means the three producers alone now meet a third of global crude demand.

The US is set to impose new sanctions on Iranian crude from next week, and exports from the Islamic Republic have already begun to fall.

Saudi Arabia and Russia have said they will pump enough crude to meet demand once the sanctions kick in.

“[After the recent drop in oil prices], this is not the time to back off, if Trump wants to put the screws on Iran,” Nunan said.

Reuters