Oil Prices Rebound in Asia After Latest Bout of Selling

Oil prices rebounded amid some bargain-hunting after a fresh slide overnight to one-month settlement lows.

Futures have steadily risen in Asian trading Friday, with global benchmark Brent erasing the decline logged overseas Thursday. June Brent on London's ICE Futures exchange was recently up 0.8% to $51.83 a barrel while light, sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 1.1% to $49.49 in the Globex electronic session after falling 1.3% a day earlier.

Pressuring the market anew Thursday was continued doubts about whether ongoing production cuts led by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are enough to eliminate the ongoing glut of oil in global stockpiles.

OPEC will decide next month whether to extend current production caps, which resulted in a crude rally in late November. But prices have stalled since amid rebounding U.S. oil output, and prices could remain range-bound a bit longer.

"We don't expect prices to rise too much before the OPEC meeting next month," said Daniel Hynes, commodities analyst at ANZ Bank. But if the output ceiling is extending, oil could move back toward $55 and possibly reach $60 a barrel in the second half of the year, he added.

Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, director of Commtrendz Risk Management, doesn't see prices climbing sharply even if the production caps are extended. But he does highlight price support that's been seen this month during selloffs at different points of April.

Next on the docket for market watchers is the weekly reading of active U.S. drilling rigs, due later Friday from Baker Hughes.

Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for June--the benchmark gasoline contract--was recently up 1.2% at $1.5725 a gallon while diesel gained 0.7% to $1.5221 and ICE gasoil for May climbed 1.7% to $459 a metric ton.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 28, 2017 01:01 ET (05:01 GMT)