Oil Futures Rebound Some After Worst Day in a Month

Oil futures rebounded some in Asian trading, helped by an industry group that said US crude and gasoline inventories fell last week more than what a government report out later Thursday is anticipated to show.

The American Petroleum Institute release came after crude logged its biggest decline in a month at 4%. That decisively ended what had been the market's longest winning streak in at least five years at eight sessions. Those gains were helped along by last week's report from the Energy Information Administration which showed falling U.S. stockpiles and production.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in August recently traded up 0.8% at $45.49 a barrel in the Globex electronic session. September Brent, on London's ICE Futures exchange, rose 0.8% to $48.17. August Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock jumped 1% to $1.5175 cents a gallon, diesel gained 0.8% to $1.49 and ICE gasoil was little changed at $441.75 a metric ton.

Despite the gains during the past two weeks, bearish sentiment persists about whether the production cuts led by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are helping result in noted reductions in global inventories, which remains above five-year averages.

In light of that and "continued expansion in oil production, oil prices are likely to remain at current levels over the next week," said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Global Insight.

The API's data showed U.S. oil inventories fell 5.8 million barrels last week while gasoline supplies dropped 5.7 million. The EIA release is seen by analysts showing declines of 2.5 million and 1.4 million barrels, respectively.

Write to Biman Mukherji at biman.mukherji@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 06, 2017 00:58 ET (04:58 GMT)