Oil futures: Crude climbs higher on US jobs data boost, mixed signals from China
Quantum Commodity Intelligence - Crude oil futures Monday were trending higher, cautiously rebounding from the previous week's sharp downturn which saw benchmark prices slump back to pre-war levels as demand slowdown fears gripped markets.
Front-month October ICE Brent futures were trading at $96.32/b (1900 GMT), compared to the day's trading range of $93.01-$96.61/b and Friday's settle of $94.92/b.
At the same time, September NYMEX WTI was trading $90.411/b, versus Friday's settle of $89.01/b.
Prices climbed towards the daily highs in late-afternoon London trade after positive data which showed the US added 528,000 new jobs last month, more than double economists' expectations of 250,000.
Oil markets earlier faced mixed signals from China after the latest data showed that Asia's largest economy imported 8.79 million bpd of crude in July, only marginally above June's four-year low of 8.72 million bpd and over 9% down on the year.
There was better news on the broader economic front as China reported export growth unexpectedly picked up during July, seen as an encouraging boost to the economy as it struggles to recover from the pandemic, although weakening global demand could act as a potential drag on exports in the coming months.
Exports increased 18% in July from a year earlier, the fastest pace this year, official customs data showed on Sunday, compared with a 17% increase in June and beating expectations for a 15% gain.
But markets again struggled to shake off last week's US data showing a steep fall in US gasoline deliveries, which indicated demand was back to 2020 levels.
"The petroleum markets are still reeling over that 7% weekly drop in gasoline demand even though almost everybody realizes that number will be adjusted to the upside in the coming weeks," said Phil Flynn of The Price Futures Group.
Flynn added that one possible explanation for the huge drop wasn't because consumers started to slow down purchases but because of actions by wholesale gasoline buyers.
He noted sharply falling wholesale prices caused commercial buyers of gasoline to hold off on purchases and instead bought the minimum amount that they could buy in the hopes that they could buy gasoline cheaper in the new week.
The combined bullish bet held by money managers on both the Brent and WTI crude oil futures contracts fell to a near two-year low at the start of August as traders trimmed back amid global economic worries.
Meanwhile, Baker Hughes' latest weekly survey showed active drilling rigs in the US decreased by 3 to 764, the first decline on 10 weeks but up 273 units from the 491 rigs working this time a year ago. Drilling rigs specifically for crude oil were down seven at 598.
