SINGAPORE, July 24 (Reuters) - Brent crude held steady around $108 a barrel on Thursday as a surprisingly strong reading on Chinese manufacturing bolstered hopes for higher demand in the worlds No.2 oil consumer. Chinas factory sector expanded at its fastest in 18 months in July, as a raft of government stimulus measures kicked in, a preliminary HSBC survey showed on Thursday. [L4N0PZ0N2] China is a big commodities player, and this is definitely positive for oil, said Avtar Sandu, senior commodities manager at Phillip Futures in Singapore. Equities have moved higher, so this is a number everybody is happy about, he said. Brent crude for September delivery LCOc1 traded down 14 cents at $107.89 a barrel by 0701 GMT, after closing 70 cents higher on Wednesday. U.S. crude CLc1 was down 20 cents at $102.92, after gaining 73 cents in the previous session. Prices pushed higher on Wednesday after U.S. government data showed crude stocks USOILC=ECI fell 4 million barrels last week. Analysts had expected a decrease of just 2.8 million barrels. EIA/S Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for U.S. benchmark oil fell 1.5 million barrels USOICC=ECI , data from the Energy Information Administration showed. A build of 5 million barrels in combined inventories of gasoline and distillates, however, raised questions about demand. U.S. crudes discount to Brent CL-LCO1=R dropped as low as $4.51 on Wednesday, near a three-month low, as high domestic refinery utilization rates signalled strong near-term demand for crude oil. The spread had widened to $4.91 a barrel by the end of the day as traders covered short positions ahead of the close, and was at $5.14 a barrel on Thursday. U.S. CONDENSATE EXPORTS Japanese and South Korean oil refiners have purchased the first condensate cargoes to be exported from the United States since the easing of a 40-year ban on U.S. crude exports, industry sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday. [L4N0PZ0UW] [L4N0PZ046] Amid booming shale oil production, the United States recently softened a total ban on crude exports in place since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s. It means very little in itself, but because of current events it takes on a more political or symbolic importance, said Alex Yap, a senior oil analyst at FG Energy. If the U.S. wants its allies to be less dependent on the likes of Russia and Iran, it has to show some willingness to step up as a supplier instead of keeping the bounty from shale production within its own market. While conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East continued to support prices, crude supply from Iraq remained unaffected by fighting in the country. Iraqs oil exports from its southern terminals in July rose to a near-record rate of 2.52 million barrels per day (bpd), according to loading data and industry sources. [L6N0PY4SH] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said efforts to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas had made some progress. Still fighting raged in Gaza on Wednesday, displacing thousands more Palestinians in the battered territory. [L6N0PY0Q2] In Ukraine, the government said two of its fighter jets were shot down over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday. A powerful Ukrainian rebel leader also confirmed that pro-Russia separatists had an anti-aircraft missile of the type Washington says was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 08:10:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015