Brent crude oil Futures rose 34 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $69.53 a barrel by 0430 GMT, while U.S. crude futures were at $66.10 a barrel, up 35 cents, or 0.5 percent.
Both benchmarks fell nearly $3 on Tuesday, with Brent hitting its lowest level since December 2021 and WTI falling to a May 2023 low, after OPEC+ revised down its demand forecast for this year and 2025.
“The market rebounded autonomously as Tuesday’s drop was substantial,” said Yuki Takashima, an economist at Nomura Securities, adding that fears of Francine supply disruption also lent support.
“Still, downward pressure is likely to continue in the near term as investors are concerned about a slowdown in demand due to the economic slowdown in China and the US,” it said, adding that it had lowered its forecast range for WTI for the rest of the year to $60-$80 from $65-$85 this week.
Francine has strengthened into a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tuesday, prompting Louisiana residents to flee inland and oil and gas companies to shut in production. About 24% of crude oil production and 26% of natural gas output in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico were offline due to the storm, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said Tuesday. On Tuesday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) lowered its forecast that global oil demand would rise by 2.03 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024, from last month’s forecast of growth of 2.11 million bpd, it said in a monthly report.
OPEC also lowered its estimate for global demand growth in 2025 to 1.74 million bpd from 1.78 million bpd.
But the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday that global oil demand will grow to a record this year, while production growth will be slower than earlier forecasts.
Oil prices were also supported by a drawdown of crude inventories in the United States.
US crude oil Stocks fell by 2.793 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 6, while gasoline inventories fell by 513,000 barrels, according to market sources citing figures from the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday.
Eleven analysts polled by Reuters estimated on average that crude inventories rose by about 1 million barrels and gasoline stocks fell by 0.1 million barrels.
China’s daily crude oil imports rose last month to their highest level in a year, customs data and Reuters records showed on Tuesday, but were still 7% lower than a year ago and year-to-date imports are 3% lower than the same period a year earlier.
This has led Hiroyuki Kikukawa, president of NS Trading, a unit of Nissan Securities, to predict that the market will remain bearish due to fears over slowing global demand, including from China.
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