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FILE PHOTO: An oil field worker works on a pump rig at PetroChina’s Daqing oil field in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province November 5, 2007. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA )
HOUSTON, Aug 8 (Reuters) – Oil prices rose nearly 2 percent in volatile trading on Monday, clawing back from multi-month lows hit last week as positive economic data from China and the U.S. they fueled demand hopes despite lingering fears of a recession. .
Brent crude futures settled down $1.73, or 1.8%, at $96.65 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $90.76 a barrel, up $1.75, or 1.97%.
Last week, fears that a recession could hit energy demand sent first-month Brent prices down 13.7% to their lowest level since February. It was Brent’s biggest weekly drop since April 2020 and WTI lost 9.7%.
Both contracts recovered some losses on Friday after job growth in the United States, the world’s top oil consumer, unexpectedly accelerated in July.
“Again, the macro influences have come back into this market, especially with Friday’s employment number, the economy should give us much better gasoline demand than we’re seeing,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New. York.
On Sunday, China also surprised markets with faster-than-expected export growth. Read more
China, the world’s top crude importer, delivered 8.79 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude in July, up from a four-year low in June but still 9.5% less than a year before, according to customs data.
In Europe, Russian crude and oil exports continued to flow ahead of the looming European Union embargo that will take effect on December 5. read more
Last week, the Bank of England warned of a prolonged recession in the UK. Read more
As for US output, energy companies last week cut the number of oil rigs to the most since September in the first decline in 10 weeks.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs said they believe the case for higher oil prices remains strong, with the market in a bigger deficit than they expected in recent months.
Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla, Florence Tan Editing by Mark Potter, Kirsten Donovan and David Gregorio
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