On Thursday, crude oil prices increased due to low US inventories and tight outlook for Russian supply.
At the time of writing, the West Texas Intermediate futures are trading higher by 1.68% to $89.59 per barrel. Likewise, the global benchmark Brent contracts are advancing by 1.84% to $95.37 a barrel.
During the previous session, price rose more than 1.00% even though Brent at one point plummeted at its lowest since February of this year.
In China, coronavirus lockdowns and fuel export controls curbed demand, causing a deep decline in crude prices in the previous sessions.
Supporting Thursday’s rebound is the recently released US oil inventories, which came in better-than-expected.
On Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute unveiled that the weekly crude stock plummeted by -0.45 million barrels. It is lower than the market estimates of -0.12 million barrels and well below the previous record of 2.16 million.
On the following day, the Energy Information Administration showed that the crude inventories ended August 12 declined by -7.01 million barrels. This latest data is less than the analysts’ forecasts of -0.28 million and behind the prior result of 5.46 million barrels.
Chinese crude imports could recover
Analysts have projected that Chinese crude imports could recover this month as the pricing advantage of Moscow oil.
The Asian nation is boosting the competitiveness of its economy by importing heavily discounted crude oil from Russia and Iran.
Even though it is not aware of the details of oil flow from the latter nation, China’s foreign ministry stated that Beijing has opposed United States’ sanctions on both embattled countries.
The Chinese department said that the government is maintaining a normal trade with both Iran and Russia in different areas, which includes crude oil.
Experts estimated that China’s Iranian imports were about 500,000 barrels per day, which were all supplied to independent refiners or commercial storage.
